A Glorious Thing: Piracy
Julie Peters, 4 November 2010
Bruce Sterling’s 1998 political thriller, Distraction, is set in the year 2044, and roving bands of land-based pirates have taken over the American hinterlands, swamps and roadways, armed with smoke bombs, high-frequency magnets (for scrambling computers) and superglue. The army is bankrupt, and the police force is disabled by corruption and general ineptitude. So – much like the...