Heavy Weather

Heavy Weather is Bruce Sterling's interpretation of a variation on a cyberpunk theme. The variation, in this case, is "hacking" weather, in a future plagued by global warming and extreme weather events.

And therein lies the central complaint about the book - what, exactly, does it mean to "hack" weather? After dragging the reader along through over 100 pages, Sterling finally thrusts his characters into the first "extreme weather" event of the book, which is a bit late to explain what the cast of characters are actually accomplishing by chasing storms, but hey, better late then never. But even then, Sterling never bothers to mention what "hacking" means, in the context of weather. There is no manipulation of weather. There is no modification of weather. There is nothing that can be perceived as "hacking" in any of the characters' activities.

But Sterling certainly doesn't let the logical disconnect between what he talks about and what his characters do stop him. Sterling covers the whole gamut of cyberpunk jargon, and most of it, like weather hacking, goes unexplained, or is explained only after (well after) he's used the term. Sentences like this abound throughout the novel: "If Alex thought that stunting an ultralight was hairy, he'd learn otherwise if Buzzard virched him in an ornithopter to punch the core..." Sterling fails to mention what a core is, does not explain the ornithopter until several dozen pages later, turns virtual reality into a verb (virching) without explaining his conception of virtual reality, etc.

I'm not asking here for the author to hold my hand. And this approach has an attractive quality - it's got a hip swagger to it. If Sterling were to actually explain what he was talking about, it would stunt that swagger. But this hipster mentality doesn't apply gracefully to Sterling's writing - in just about every other sentence, the author expends significant effort to describe intricate, poetic details. If the author can wax poetic about the sunset, why can't he take a little time to explain what a core is, or how you punch one? There's no need to be coy.

I thought, from the surreptitious burglary opening, that I was in for an adrenaline-filled, action-packed book. Unfortunately, the opening was merely a sideshow to the (more boring) central business of the book, "weather hacking" (whatever that is). Sure, the opening floods one's mind with a rush of new technological concepts, plot elements, and good old-fashioned bad-assery (you can't beat thermite in an action sequence). But how this has anything to do with being a weather hacker, why the main character is so intent on rescuing her brother and why she chose the point in time she did, why I should continue reading the book after its first chapter, are all left up in the air, unanswered.

And when they come down, they come down on the side of "meh."