And, the shelf life for heroes is very short. It constantly has to be cultivated and rebuilt because it is degrading into violence and separation. The funny thing is, reading this I became even more aware how relevant Chaos Theory is to human societies. All the little mentions that typify the era are present from boys adventure stories (propaganda masquerading as entertainment), League of Nations, lingering occultism, and the idealist belief of a better future. It is bald-faced, so any readers who go into this expecting political correctness instead of the scathing representations in a myriad of manifestations are going to be offended. As is all the political ideals that are subverted throughout the book. The subversion of the premise of piracy is freaking hysterical. His immediate superior in piracy was the Ace of Hearts. He was a Superman anarchist, but since he lived in a jungle, he did not have to smash the State. Tarzan was the American version of the Nietzschean Overman. So, after all the Nietzsche worship because he spent time studying in Turin and considering him a son of Turin, I found this more than a little amusing. In case one isn't familiar, this is the rooftop racetrack for Fiat in Turin. He was a teenage boy from Turin, so race-cars and airplanes interested him much more than philosophical aspirations. The demise of Italian industry greatness brought on by Armistice. The laundry list of languages spoken and who is willing to speak which ones and why. The racket of internal stamps trading in lieu of "money". The artwork throughout is nicely done, and definitely adds flavor to the tale.Ĭroatian pirate refusing change for British pound in Kingdom of Yugoslavia dinars. It's funny and complicated and a knowledge of European geography, relevant political allegiances and the differences between the warring political ideologies of modernism make for a not so subtle farce. The Interwar critique of the Italian state of Fiume and the slippery slide and friction between anarchism to communist idealism and its schism to fascism. Additionally, there is an extensive interview, Q&A with Sterling regarding the book. Yes, there is an assumption of knowledge of the period, but the addendums at the end explain this more thoroughly for those readers who might have been confused, so skip and read the explanation of the alternate timeline and situating Sterling's viewpoint on the Interwar period if one is baffled after the first ten pages. This story is a clever and critical editorial of events. It actually took me a few moments to catch the flow of the story, the bumbling ridiculousness narration of it. I'm a sucker for covers, especially ones that say "Pirate" or "Utopia" and have screaming propagandistic art. He's been living in Europe for the last decade, learning so much about these places, and also as an American Cyberpunk author now writing Dieselpunk, I have to say that he's pushing the envelope again. Bruce Sterling has gotten really interesting.
I haven't been so delighted by such a strange book just tickling my sense of wonder in such a way as this. I was hoping to see Clarke Ashton Smith among them, but alas, no. There's even Houdini, the Spy, Lovecraft his employee, and also Robert E Howard working alongside them. :) Mussilini got his dick shot off while working as an editor, Hitler got shot and killed taking a bullet for a friend.
This one is a beautiful strike in another direction, and it's humorous and it's scary and it pushes all the right buttons for me.Īnd it's also pulp in all the grand ways, too. I've been getting tired of all those overdone WWII alternate histories. As an SF novel, it's really quite gorgeous. They live by theft and live by their strength, fascists in fact, but not in spirit, for everyone is truly equal here.
PIRATE UTOPIA BOOK FOR FREE
Now what if the whole thing hadn't imploded after 15 months, and instead had gone on to arm themselves successfully and innovate as they had dreamed, to become a real haven for free thinkers and equality of the sexes, ignoring the cries of the rich and the powerful as they gleefully took over all the manufacturing plants in a communist-like frenzy, but stopping there only to kick out all the actual communists?
PIRATE UTOPIA BOOK FULL
A little town called Fiume that later becomes known as the modern Rijeka had had it's world turned upside down when a bunch of rag-tag ill-provisioned warriors took it over and declared themselves an Anarcho-Syndicalist Union, full of free love, art, poetry, high-ideals, and most of all, Rebellion.
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