Mr. Jeter has reached a skillful level in his writing; I was especially struck by his excellent powers of description. Check out this excerpt:
An Asian storm-front, edge leakage from monsoons on the other side of the circle, drizzled under his jacket collar. He thrust his gloved hands deeper into his pockets as a show of irritated impatience. He’d left a black Daimler do Brasil repro of a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Cabriolet C, a one-off historic Sindelfingen design, hunkered down at the mouth of the alley, the machine a top-of-the-line product of the maquiladores on the other side of what had once been the Mexican border. They did good work in that arc of the Gloss; the vehicle’s finish, rubbed to a deep brilliance by the nimble hands of ten-year-olds, glistened as though it contained infinite space, as though a piece of the night sky complete with stars had fallen there.
Or how about this bit of description:
Downscale consumer goods, effluvia from the cheap-‘n’-nastiverse, glittering with an enticing pseudo-life. Which was already dying, even before the tiny microbatteries, lightsucks, and other power sources could be exhausted. McNihil looked at the bright things that he had carried down here, and saw them visibly fading, the little dancing figures hobbled in their paso dobles and quadrilles, slowing down and going inert in hunched-over postures, like a miniature galley of terminal osteoporosis.
Or how about this one side of a dialog:
“Regular enough,” conceded Harrisch. “It’s not just an issue of managing the corporation; you have to manage the customers as well. Which in our case is the world. Or at least the Gloss—not that there’s any other part of the world that matters. What some people at DynaZauber believe, is that if it isn’t L.A., it ain’t shit. That language is a little more colorful than what I’d use. But the agreed-upon principle is the same: the Pacific is the new Mediterranean. The omphalos, the middle of the earth. It has been for a long time. The great middle ocean, the navel, the solar plexus. Who cares what goes on in Kansas or Ulan Bator? I mean, if there is a Kansas or an Ulan Bator any longer.”
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3 comments:
I was (am) a Jeter fan. Even read some of his tv/movie fic (star trek, blade runner). I tried to read Noir when we live in Auburn and just couldn't get through it. Too much.
A few months ago I posted about open sourcing the pacificIn which I included then prime minister of Japan H.E. Mr. Yasuo Fukuda's (he has since resigned from office) vision of the Pacific ocean becoming an inland sea. This falls exactly in line with Jeter's "Gloss" theory, I am excited more than ever to read his take on the near future seeing how he must be grounded in a lucid view of a logical outcome in the changing hegemony of Asia. Even in decline the U.S. will more than likely remain a valuable part of "new Mediterranean" thus making what I have heard so far of this book sound extremely feasible. I really like Sci-Fi that falls into this genre of a believable futurist outcome in the not so distant and subsequent time frame. I'll be looking forward to reading this. Unfortunately I could not find a copy at the library.
As soon as I get a copy of Jeter's third Blade Runner novel I'm going to read them also.
In regard to the changing hegemony, if one is sufficiently high up enough from the bottom of the food chain (or not so high up as to lose one's head), one could prepare for the changes.
Change is inevitable whether we like it or not, it only remains if we are prepared as much as Providence will allow and as we are permitted "under the sun".
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