Islands in the Net

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Islands in the Net, a 1988 science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling, offers a view of an early 21st century world apparently peaceful with delocalised, networking corporations. The protagonist, swept up in events beyond her control, finds herself in the places off the net, from a datahaven in Grenada, to a Singapore under terrorist attack, to the poorest and most disaster-struck part of Africa.

In the story, the fictional book The Lawrence Doctrine and Postindustrial Insurgency, named for Lawrence of Arabia, is banned because it deals directly with methods and tactics of an insurgent rebellion.

Contents 1 Summary of the plot 2 Lawrence’s doctrine 3 Political order of the world in Islands... 4 Islands... as “the high-tech Candide” (Roger Zelazny’s comparison) 5 Islands... as the first postcyberpunk work 6 Islands... as picaresque 7 Hightech inventions 8 Successful predictions 9 Failed predictions 10 Sources

[edit] Summary of the plot

The action takes place in 2023–2025 on Galveston, Texas, USA; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Grenada; an island in the north east coast of South America; Singapore and Africa. Protagonist Laura Webster, a mother of three months old Loretta, works as a public relations employee for global corporation of economic democrats Rizome. Together with her husband David they run the Lodge, a resort for Rizome workers on Galveston, island belonging to the state of Texas, USA. The action sets off when Rizome organizes a conference between itself and three data havens, EFT Commerzbank of Luxemburg, The Young Soo Chim Islamic Bank and Grenada United Bank, in the Lodge. After first day of conference the representetive of Grenada Winston Stubbs is assassinated. The organization which admits to killing him calls itself F.A.C.T. (Free Army of Counter-Terrorism). Rizome decides to send Laura with her husband and baby to Grenada on a diplomatic mission to prove that Rizome had nothing to do with the murder. When in Grenada Laura and David learn about its tragic history and advanced technology flourishing on the island thanks to “mad-doctors” like the American Brian Prentis. Grenada is ruled by one party the New Millennium Movement with Prime Minister Eric Louison who uses voodoo tradition as means of keeping order in the country. Food is plentiful and cheaply produced on one of the huge tankers adapted for factories and housing places. Drugs in a form of pure sythetic THC are also cheap and widely accessible. Laura and David have to escape Grenada after it is attacked by Singapore. They go back to Atlanta and there David and Laura separate. David and the baby go to one of Rizome’s Retreats and Laura sets off to Singapore to continue her mission to improve the world. In Singapore Laura witnesses launching of first Singaporean space racket celebrated by speech of Singapore’s prime minister, leader of People’s Innovation Party, Kim Sue Lok. The celebration ends in chaos as the prime minister spits fire and explodes, as it turns out he was a victim of Grenada’s pseudo- voodoo tricks. This events starts national panic and riots. Granada invades Singapore in reaction to Singapore’s previous attack. In addition, Singapore’s opposition party, the Anti- Labour Party with Razak as a leader tries to use the situation to get into power. The last group to invade Singapore is the Red Cross. Laura is cut off from the Net and cannot contact her husband or Rizome’s headquarters. Together with other Rizome’s workers in Singapore she decides to get herself arrested and wait in prison for the end of war. Unfortunately, Laura gets separated from her companions and ends up on the roof of The Young Soo Chim Islamic Bank. From there a chopper takes her, together with other survivors from the riots, to a cargo ship somewhere in the middle of a sea. The ship is bombed by F.A.C.T. and Laura is taken to one of F.A.C.T.’s submarines. There she learns more about the organization. Then Laura is taken by a plane and transported to one of the prisons in Bamako, the capital of Mali. F.A.C.T. took over this country's government in order to have a base for the organization. After a conversation with the Inspector of Prisons she finds out that she poses a threat to the organization because they think she knows they have an atomic bomb which they keep on board of Thermopylae, the submarine she have been kept on. She spends two years in the prison and when South African country supported by European authority of the Vienna convention, attacks Mali she is taken in a convoy to the atomic site to be shot on camera as a hostage. She is miraculously freed when the convoy is attacked by a group of Inadin Cultural Revolutionists. Their leader is Jonathan Gresham, an American journalist and radical, who helps Inadin people, also called Tuaregs the nomadic tribes of Sahara, fight against any forms of outside interference in their traditional way of life. Gresham takes Laura to Azalia in order to save life of her convoy companion, Azalian doctor Katje Selous, wounded in the action. In Azalia Gresham records Laura’s statement on all that happened to her and sends in on the Net. Laura and Gresham get romantically involved but this feeling has no future as she has to go back to the States and Gresham will continue to help Inadins. Next when we meet Laura she arrives at Galveston and takes part in an official Rizome party organized for her. Her husband David lost hope that she is alive and got involved with Laura’s closest friend, Emily Donato. Loretta, Laura and David’s daughter, is raised by Laura’s mother Margaret'. Laura continues to work for Rizome and tries to improve the world by doing it. The last scene in the novel describes Hiroshima being bombed by F.A.C.T. Fortunately, this time the bomb did not explode.

[edit] Lawrence’s doctrine

there is a book in the fictional world of Islands... titled The Lawrence Doctrine and Postindustrial Insurgency by Colonel Jonathan Gresham. It is banned by Vienna and widely read in the political underground. It draws on the example of T. E. Lawrence who during First World War helped the Arabs fight Ottoman Turks. Lawrence convinced Arabs to, instead of fighting Turks, block their expansion by destroying their communication lines, which at the time were railway tracks and telegraphs. Although Arabs were successful in fighting Turks they became dependent on the British Empire to provide them with industrial products like explosives or canned food. Gresham calls First World War “a proto-Net civil war”. Arabs fought one enemy by destroying its communication network, for Arabs it was railway and telegraph for Tuaregs it is the Net, but at the same time the Arabs were colonized by the British with products of their industry, guncotton, dynamite and canned food- today’s solar power, plastique, and single-cell protein. Gresham’s book shows a pessimistic view of globalization and its mechanisms. It is impossible for small and economically weaker nations to stay completely independent. The global influence will always be present with its positive and negative aspects.

[edit] Political order of the world in Islands...

In the world of the novel the USA and the Soviet Union are still the world powers. The international political order is guarded by the Vienna Convention uses censorship as means of keeping the world order, is weak and divided and to avoid world panic protects the terrorists from F.A.C.T. Countries that grow in power are Grenada, Singapore and Luxemburg the so called data havens where data piracy in legitimate. Organizations that feel threatened by the growing influence of havens are Rizome Industries Group, an economic democracy global corporation which suffers losses because of the daata piracy and wants to negotiate with the pirates, and the Free Army of Counter-Terrorism (F.A.C.T.) which calls itself “the real world police” and plans to deal with any signs of attacks on “doctrines of national sovereignty”. This is the main reason why F.A.C.T. assassinates Winston Stubbs and bombs the ship on which Laura was sailing with Singaporean pirates. The novel shows a new phenomenon emerging in the political world. The global organizations start realizing that they no longer need governments to successfully run their affairs, “Let us cut out the middleman.” Says one of Kymera Corporation workers. The F.A.C.T. seems to be fightig signs of such thinking while at the same time is a global corporation which chose one of African countries,The Republic of Mali, and took over its government in order to have its own military base. Africa in Islands... is still “a mess”. The only problem which has been solved is famine, thanks to the scop, a single-cell protein. The countries still suffer from poverty and political instability. People die from retrovirus and have no perspectives and developed countries are not interested in what is going on there.

[edit] Islands... as “the high-tech Candide” (Roger Zelazny’s comparison)

the novel can be read as a satire on optimistic philosophy of social planing and improvement, Laura Webster is a candide who sets off on a journey in order to learn that things are not that simple.

[edit] Islands... as the first postcyberpunk work

"Arguably, science fiction entered the postcyberpunk era in 1988 with the publication of Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net. Just as Sterling's The Artificial Kid encapsulated many of cyber-punk's themes before the movement had a name, Islands in the Net prefigured a growing body of work that can (at least until someone comes up with a better name) be labeled postcyberpunk." [1]

[edit] Islands... as picaresque

• Laura Webster starts her journey as self righteous 33 years old representative of American middle class, who believes that she can change the world by simply explaining the people from other countries what they are doing wrong, her reactions to things she hears from the Reverend Morgan of the Church of Ishtar and her attitude towards Grenada’s liberal drug policy shows that she is quite typical representative of her social class and her nation.
• The action of the novel is constructed as a travel story, we are presented with four main settings, Texas, Grenada, Singapore and Africa. Each time the protagonist enters the setting when it is stable and leaves when things fall apart, in Texas it is Winston Stubbs' assassination that starts disintegration, in Grenada it is the bombing, in Singapore the Grenadian military response connected with Anti-Labour Party riots and Red Cross intervention, African episode ends with Azania supported by the Vienna attacking Mali.

[edit] Hightech inventions

• the Net, similar to today’s Internet
• running shoes used by Laura with indicators of mileage covered by the runner similar to the latest product of Nike and Ipod companies [2]
• trash cans on the Galveston beach which move towards the person who calls them, and after one throw something into them they say “Thank you!” [3]
• wathphone used as a watch, a phone, and an organizer [4]
• videoglasses sunglasses with videocamera, used by Laura and David on Grenada, go together with earphones custom made rather heavy and awkward [5]
• the scop, single cell protein, cheaply mass produced in “protein vats swarming with bacteria” (7)[6]
• Sticky (Michael) Thompson/ Nesta Stubbs, a man whose digestive system has been modified to contain special bacteria which after he eats a carton of yogurt produce drugs turning him into professional hitman feeling no pain or empathy
• Suntan lotion which changes the structure of a person’s skin and turns its color to black, invented by Brain Prentis, used by David and later mass produced by Rizome
• Romance, red capsules containing hormones similar to those produced by a brain of a person in love synthetically produced by gene-spliced bacteria , used by prostitutes from The Church of Ishtar, a religious organization providing sexual services to men
• Synthetic THC, produced legally on Grenada in form of small peper plasters stuck to the skin and releasing THC, the active substance in marijuana [7]

[edit] Successful predictions

• the Net as a means of worldwide communication and the omnipresence of computers. B. Sterling: “I think it was a grand success to realize that big, dorky geek computers were going to become incredibly fashionable.”.
• the institution of data haven, today there is a HavenCo. Data haven on Sealand on the North Sea. “...the Sealand data haven in the North Sea is similar to the data havens described in my 1988 novel Islands in the Net."
• End of the cold war - though how it ended in the novel is quite different than how it ended in reality.

[edit] Failed predictions

• Islands anticipates that the Soviet Union will still be in existence in 2023 - in reality, the USSR was officially dissolved on December 8, 1991.

[edit] Sources

• Sterling, Bruce, Islands in the Net, Ace Books New York 1989 ISBN: 0-441-37423-9
• Bernstein, Rob and Bass, Gordon, “Tomorrow Never Knows“ in: Yahoo! Internet Life; Dec2000, Vol. 6 Issue 12, p108, 6p, 4c, 4bw