Islands in The Net

Islands In The Net is a political science-fiction novel by Bruce Sterling, published in 1988.

The story is first set in 2023, Galveston, Texas. It follows the adventure of Laura Webster, a Public Relation worker for a global corporation Rizome. She tends a lodge along with her Husband, Davis, with whom she has a 3 month old daughter, Loretta.

Her plight begins when one of the representatives of a datahaven, Winston Stubbs, gets Assassinated during a major conference between two other datahaven representatives and Rizome in her lodge. Her company decides to send her and her family to Grenada, home of one of the datahavens, and solve the problem diplomatically.

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This books contains the following tropes:

• Attack Drone
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Ceramic machetes.
• Big Labyrinthine Building - An oil rig as big as a city. Depicted here
• Clean Cut: Thanks to the cutting power of the ceramic machetes.
• Covers Always Lie: Both the above image, and the Ace publication cover are misleading. This is not Cyberpunk.
• Future Food Is Artificial: "Scop", are single celled proteins grown in bacteria-filled vats.
• "Glad to Be Alive" Sex
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold
• Mega Corp
• Our Presidents Are Different
• Pinball Protagonist: Laura, at some points in the novel.
• Post Cyber Punk: Definitely not cyberpunk.
• Powder Keg Crowd
• Prison Episode: Which is also a Girls Behind Bars.
• Science Marches On: Videotapes and cassettes are obsolete now.
• Sharpened to a Single Atom: The ceramic machetes
• Society Marches On: Soviet Union breaks in 1991.
• Time Skip
• Twenty Minutes Into the Future
• Video Phone