Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction writer and futurist born on April 14, 1954, in Brownsville, who has worked across fiction, journalism, criticism, blogging, and design throughout his career.
Sterling studied at the University of Texas at Austin and the Art Center College of Design. Writing in English, he has taken on a wide range of professional roles — novelist, short fiction writer, journalist, blogger, orator, literary critic, literary scholar, and designer — making him one of the more varied figures in American letters in terms of the hats he has worn publicly.
His association with cyberpunk is one of the most concrete markers of his career. Sterling edited the Mirrorshades anthology, and his own fiction has remained tied to the cyberpunk genre throughout his writing life. The awards record reflects his standing in the field: he has received the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, the Locus Award for Best Novelette, the Locus Award for Best Short Story, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the Hayakawa Award. That spread of honors covers both short and long fiction and draws on recognition from American and international bodies alike.
The recurring thread running through his output — across novels, short stories, critical writing, and public speaking — is the cyberpunk sensibility he has been associated with throughout his career, and his editorial work on the Mirrorshades anthology remains one of the most tangible expressions of that connection.
Quotes by Bruce Sterling
I was once a student in a punk T-Shirt hooked on screwed-up scenarios. That's how I became the esteemed cultural figure that I am today.
We may yet work up to some serious shooting war, or maybe some acts of urban genocide committed with rogue nuclear weapons. But if that were the case, why would we call that '9/11'? If Washington disappeared in a mushroom cloud, we'd give that huge event a different name.
I wouldn't describe that 'position' as 'parasitic.' I'd describe that experience as 'edifying.' I don't merely write from a critical intellectual distance. I actually live around here.
War as Napoleon knew it just not possible any more. However, we're very unlikely to accept or recognize 'world peace' even when we get it.
What we need is a somber, thoughtful, thorough, hype-free, even lugubrious book that honors the dead and resuscitates the spiritual ancestors of today’s mediated frenzy.
Without bacteria, the soil was a lifeless heap of imported lunar dust. With them, it was a constant mutational hazard.
Saying you have a political solution is like saying you can write a pop song that’s going to stay at the top of the list forever. I don’t have many illusions about this, but I’m not cynical about it.
People in the Pentagon had colleagues killed and maimed by bin Laden. They’re trying to find bin Laden and kill him and his cult. Naturally they consider that a legitimate thing to do, but they’re having mixed success at the job.
They took my womb out, and they put in brain tissue. Grafts from the pleasure center, darling. I’m wired to the ass and the spine and the throat, and it’s better than being God. When I’m hot, I sweat perfume. I’m cleaner than a fresh needle, and nothing leaves my body that you can’t drink like wine or eat like candy. And they left me bright, so that I would know what submission was. Do you know what submission is, darling?