So I was digging through the open stacks at the library today, trying to find some stuff on/by Ursula Le Guin and H.G. Wells, and you’ll never guess what I found.
Yeah, the majority of Bruce Sterling’s books. The only things missing were Involution Ocean, The Artificial Kid, Mirrorshades, and The Difference Engine. Oh, plus Zeitgeist and the new collection of short stories and his nonfiction books (which, for all I know, maybe be shelved in some other section). But everything else is there: Globalhead, A Good Old Fashioned Future, and all the novels from Schismatrix to Zeitgeist.
Okay, so like half of Bruce Sterling’s novelistic output. Still, all of that: in English, no less, on a campus in Korea, and despite the existence of at least one or two of his books in Korean translation. (The translations weren’t on hand, but the English originals were!) I was shocked. It makes me wonder whether there might be a good reason for so much SF content on the shelves of the Uni Library. Maybe there’s an SF fan in the lit department or something? I think I’ll try to find out.
Need more Sterling?
Hahaha, no, I think I have just about everything the man’s written, myself. In fact, I happened to bring all his older short story collections over here, not knowing most of them were in the library. :)
I was thinking of checking next time I’m home whether there’s an extra copy of Involution Ocean — I suspected I had two for some reason — and I know I have an extra Crystal Express, which I’ll probably donate to the library if they’ll have it.
I thought briefly that I was reading the same author. I’ve jsut finished “Dies the
Fire” by SM Stirling (two ‘i’s).
I read your bit about the tardigrade- I remember those things from university- when you get a side view, it does look a little (very little) like a bear. Not completely related to your reasons for studying tardigrades but have you read “surface Tension” by Blish? It is about a group of people, basically shrunk to microscopic size, and colonizing a puddle on a new world. Read that and you could almost pass a limnology class.
Heh, nope, I actually haven’t read anything except maybe one or two short stories by Blish.
If you haven’t read Bruce Sterling, you really should. Very cool stuff.