Distraction

Gollancz, 1999. Near Fine. Politics is the art of the possible, the "doable", as Sterling's skewed her o, Oscar Valparaiso, keeps calling his wild improvised plans as if saying t he word made them so. Oscar's usually successful schemes are as cobbled tog ether as his own genetics--Oscar is not quite human. Investigating a geneti c research facility for a Senate committee, he finds a potential power base , and an enemy worth his attention--the Governor of Louisiana has taken to conquering federal facilities using gangs of the homeless as his deniable m ercenaries, and his interest in biotech makes the genetically anomalous Osc ar, and the scientist he has fallen for, attractive acquisitions. Having a senator he has just help get elected go stark mad, and finding himself on t he Net-wide hit list of every nut with a grudge, are the sort of things wit h which Oscar copes all the time--love and other altered states of consciou sness are a bit more of a problem. Endless witty extrapolations of social a nd scientific paradoxes and a constant cheeky elaboration of already convol uted plot lines give this the brio of Sterling's best short fiction--if the re is a more entertaining near-future SF novel this year, we will be in luc k.