It's November 2044, an election year, and the state of the Union is a farce. The government is broke, the cities are privately owned, and the military is shaking down citizens in the streets. Washington has become a circus and no one knows that better than Oscar Valparaiso. A political spin doctor, Oscar has always made things look good. Now he wants to make a difference.
But Oscar has a skeleton in his closet. His only ally: Dr. Greta Penninger, a gifted neurologist at the bleeding edge of the neural revolution. Together they're out to spread a very dangerous idea whose time has come. And so have their enemies: every technofanatic, government goon, and laptop assassin in America. Oscar and Greta might not survive to change the world, but they'll put a new spin on it.
"Perhaps the sharpest observer of our media-choked culture working today."
--Time
"Classic Sterling."...
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It's November 2044, an election year, and the state of the Union is a farce. The government is broke, the cities are privately owned, and the military is shaking down citizens in the streets. Washington has become a circus and no one knows that better than Oscar Valparaiso. A political spin doctor, Oscar has always made things look good. Now he wants to make a difference.
But Oscar has a skeleton in his closet. His only ally: Dr. Greta Penninger, a gifted neurologist at the bleeding edge of the neural revolution. Together they're out to spread a very dangerous idea whose time has come. And so have their enemies: every technofanatic, government goon, and laptop assassin in America. Oscar and Greta might not survive to change the world, but they'll put a new spin on it.
"Perhaps the sharpest observer of our media-choked culture working today."
--Time
"Classic Sterling."
--The Washington Post
"Distraction is more than a futuristic political thriller; it is Sterling's persuasive vision of a social revolution that is as much biotechnological as philosophical in scope....He reserves a killer blow for the most familiar thing of all: the way we think."
--The Village Voice
"[Sterling] is back with a bang with this uproarious, provocative, thoughtful, often hilarious, sometimes inspired medium-future deconstruction of politics, science, economics, and the American dream."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Brilliantly realized...provocative and intelligent...[Sterling's] funniest novel to date and one of his most topical."
--Locus
