Zenith Angle by Bruce Sterling

Completely ridiculous, but still readable. Characters, what they say and how they say it, their actions and depiction of the working of government is all unbelievable. You can tell Sterling did a bunch of research and perhaps interviewed relevant people but then transposed everything into his alternate reality where everything has to be framed in such a way to make the mundane exciting, and the exciting over-the-top.

But was Zeitgeist any better? At the time I read it it seemed better, but it's not like much of it has stayed with me. Other books were better because they were further into the future- the future might actually match Sterling's imagination, but the present does not.

Sterling is criticized as being more effective at popularizing himself and the cyberpunk genre out of proportion with his own writing- but Schismatrix is great, Islands in the Net good, Artificial Kid is good, and then it kind of goes downhill novel-wise, but most of the short stories and really good.

Page 103 things start to go down hill when talking about the 'Grendel' supercluster.

Interesting quote about very dry and boring but reliable and secure satellite software.