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    Pirate Utopia
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    Pirate Utopia
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    Pirate Utopia
    Ebook198 pages2 hours

    Pirate Utopia

    By Bruce Sterling, John Coulthart, Warren Ellis and

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Original introduction by Warren Ellis, author of Transmetropolitan and Gun Machine

    Who are these bold rebels pillaging their European neighbors in the name of revolution? The Futurists! Utopian pirate-warriors of the tiny Regency of Carnaro, unlikely scourge of the Adriatic Sea. Mortal enemies of communists, capitalists, and even fascists (to whom they are not entirely unsympathetic).

    The ambitious Soldier-Citizens of Carnaro are led by a brilliant and passionate coterie of the perhaps insane. Lorenzo Secondari, World War I veteran, engineering genius, and leader of Croatian raiders. Frau Piffer, Syndicalist manufacturer of torpedos at a factory run by and for women. The Ace of Hearts, a dashing Milanese aristocrat, spymaster, and tactical savant. And the Prophet, a seductive warrior-poet who leads via free love and military ruthlessness.

    Fresh off of a worldwide demonstration of their might, can the Futurists engage the aid of sinister American traitors and establish world domination?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTachyon Publications
    Release dateOct 17, 2016
    ISBN9781616962371
    Unavailable
    Pirate Utopia
    Author

    Bruce Sterling

    Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction writer, born in Brownsville, Texas on April 14, 1954. His first published fiction appeared in the late 1970s, but he came to real prominence in the early 1980s as one of several writers associated with the "cyberpunk" tendency, and as that movement's chief theoretician and pamphleteer. He also edited the anthology Mirrorshades (1986), which still stands as a definitive document of that period in SF. His novel Islands in the Net (1988) won the John W. Campbell Award for best SF novel of the year; he has also won two Hugo awards, for the stories "Bicycle Repairman" (1996) and "Taklamakan" (1998). His 1990 collaboration with William Gibson, The Difference Engine, was an important work of early steampunk/neo-Victoriana. In 2009, he published The Caryatids. In 1992 he published The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, heralding a second career as a journalist covering social, legal, and artistic matters in the digital world. The first issue of Wired magazine, in 1993, featured his face on its cover; today, their web site hosts his long-running blog, Beyond the Beyond.

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    Reviews for Pirate Utopia

    3.5/5

    26 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      On September 12, 1919, acclaimed Italian war hero and poet Gabriele D’Annunzio stormed the city of Fiume, in what is now with Croatia, with 2,600 veterans of the Italian Army. He was angry that the Treaty of Versailles did not acknowledge Italian claims to the city. Thus the pirate utopia of scavenging weapons depots, more traditional piracy, extortion, free love, syndicalism, women’s suffrage, and casual drug use was born. To say nothing of the daily poetry readings D’Annunzio gave from a balcony, nightly fireworks, and uniforms that inspired many a European political extremist to come. It was a country where music was declared the fundamental principle of the state.In our world, the fun ended on December 24, 1920 when the Italian navy bombarded D’Annunzio’s palace and declared the existence of the Republic of Fiume, an event known in fascist circles as the “Christmas of Blood”.Sterling’s book is an alternate history of a sort and a work of “dieselpunk”. The departure from our timeline is the poisoning of Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference. And, while it doesn’t really play into the onstage drama, Hitler fatally catches a bullet during a “beer-hall brawl”.The trouble is, it’s not really a very plausible alternate history. H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard are strangely working with the U.S. Secret Service, with Harry Houdini as their boss no less. Yes, Sterling certainly knows his Lovecraft and what an Anglophile he was, and his slangy talk here is certainly something that Lovecraft could do on occasion with his friends. And Lovecraft did have a business relationship with Houdini, but it started in 1923. And Lovecraft was an admirer of fascism and Mussolini though D’Annunzio’s ideas, specifically his love of Futurism, don’t seem very fascistic.This is more of an emotional alternate history than you would get from Howard Waldrop, and it’s just as detailed. As you would expect from Sterling, he loves the hardware of the Italian armored cars (that would be “a standard Lancia-Ansaldo IZM”) and guns and fashions.And it’s not very successful fiction. Sterling’s pirate utopia is populated by several historical figures and taps into the zeitgeist of pseudoscience, spiritualism, parapsychology, occultism, and rapidly advancing technology that makes the 1920s so interesting. The pirate utopia draws plenty of anarchists and revolutionaries and smugglers and money launderers. Oh yes, there’s plenty of color here.Most of the story is told from the point of view of Lorenzo Secondari, a former artilleryman and engineer who dreams of the Pirate Utopia manufacturing flying torpedoes. Secondari shares D’Annunzio’s dream of a Futurist world run by supermen like themselves, men of destiny who will sweep aside the bourgeois who stand in their way of creating “a world fit for heroes”. Fiume is to build weapons to terrify the world.I suppose the Futurism is there to partially amuse in its naiveté and obscureness and, in the light of the history of the twentieth century, irony. But artists spouting manifestos as to how their art will change the world (rather like the younger Sterling in his manifestos proclaiming how cyberpunk would save science fiction) don’t interest me or convince me. Art can change the world, but it seldom does so when trying.Mostly, I just found the Futurist stuff to be crank ranting. Not that I mind crank ranting. I just have read enough not to find it novel.But the larger problem is that the element of occult and mysticism undercuts Sterling’s realistic narrative even more than his improbable alternate history. That mythic feel is quite deliberate with most of the characters referred to, in the opening cast of characters, as things like “The Prophet” (D’Annunzio) and the Pirate Engineer (Secondari).And Sterling hacks off the end of his story just when things get interesting. Mussolini seems to perhaps be out of commission for good, and the U.S., in the persons of Houdini, Howard, and Lovecraft, comes up with an intriguing proposition.In fact, the whole thing has a bit of the air of a modernist poem, say T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, sans footnotes. (Yes, I know Eliot’s poem didn’t originally have footnotes, but the fact that an editor thought it needed them does not speak in its favor.) Conclusions and allusions are not obvious in Sterling’s story (perhaps he was depending on Wikipedia erudition supplied by the readers).Now, these problems are all solved in the Tachyon package which supplements Sterling's story. In effect, it supplies meaning and context for Sterling’s truncated story.For instance, in an included interview with Rick Klaw, Sterling provides the story’s theme: “… the brotherly feeling between certain kinds of political ecstatic cult politics and the ‘sense of wonder’ of reality-bending science fiction”.Christopher Brown’s concluding essay, “To the Fiume Station”, puts the Republic of Carnaro in the context of “Sterling’s recent observations about the ways network culture liberates the timeline of our minds from the constraints of historiographically sanctioned narratives”. In particular, he mentions Sterling’s thematically similar Islands in the Net. However, the older Sterling seems wiser and more restrained in the possibilities of these semi-utopian schemes and about the wisdom of technological engineers managing our political affairs. Though, to judge by the attention we pay Zuckerberg, Gates, and Musk and have brought engineering terms like “hack” into politics, evidently we are a long way from shunning the technocratic state by and for technocrats.Graphic novelist Warren Ellis’s introduction sets things up with a good introduction about “old gunsmoke, exterminating art and war dreams within which” Sterling presents his story.Illustrator John Coulthart provides some quite nice illustrations throughout the book inspired by Futurism and D’Annunzio’s symbols.
    • 3/5
      Pirate UtopiaAuthor: Bruce SterlingPublisher: Tachyon PublicationsPublished In: San Francsico, CADate: 2016Pgs: 187_________________________________________________REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSSummary:The futurist pirates of the small Regency of Carnaro are rising. The scourge of the Adriatic Sea are about to take their place on the world stage and Europe...the World is never going to be the same. World War 1 veterans, engineers, raiders, communists, capitalists, fascists, aristocrats, spies and their masters, prophets, warriors, poets, traitors, all come together in Carnaro. Ruthlessness clothed in steampunk with an eye toward the future. Robert E Howard, H P Lovecraft, and Harry Houdini, agents of the American Secret Service are on the job. _________________________________________________Genre:MysteryThrillerSuspensePoliticalScience FictionFantasyHistoricalLiteratureFictionAlternate HistoryWhy this book:Saw Sterling’s name. Read the blurb. And my brain asked me, “WTF?”_________________________________________________Favorite Character:Secondari’s single handed attack on the armored car and the not-so-committed Communists who were attempting to threaten his Croat factory pirates outside the silent movie theater...yes, that reads factory pirates. No, I’m not going to explain. Which is kind of how this book is.Secondari is crazy. Can’t tell if this is all his vivid fever dream or if it's really happening to him. The seance medic from Turin calling his ghost back to his body after he is wounded in a WW1 battle that Italy loses. And while he is convalescing Italy wins a decisive battle forcing Austria-Hungary from the war.Secondari is a confusing character; both old man and young man, man of action and wounded warrior, pirate engineer and secret policeman, doting father figure and bloodthirsty revolutionary.The Feel:The disdain that all the characters seem to hold all the other characters in is palpable and awesome; from the theater ticket seller to the Corporate Syndicalist to everyone else, just awesome.This is a weird damn book.Favorite Scene / Quote:“All the leaders of Occupied Fiume are geniuses, but all the geniuses had to pay to watcher her movies, anyway.”“Inflation raged through Italy. The peacetime Kingdom of Italy was half graveyard and half clearing-sale. ...His own family doubted what he told them(of the war and his death and rebirth). They insulted him with their pity. Angry scenes ensued--especially with his older brother…(who thought) Those who fired the weapons did not prosper. Those who built the weapons had done well by the Great War. ...He(Secondari) could not stay in the city that would shelter such a man. He would have to find a holocaust city, a place fit for himself.” This was a great page. Secondari is much better defined after this page. Prior, he just seemed a crazed old coot. Now, he appears a delusional megalomaniac with his repeated references to his being a Nietzschean Superman, too good for the world around him.Pacing:The text has an odd energy to it and a frenetic pace.Hmm Moments:Many of the people and places used in this story actually existed, though they have been tweaked off their historical perches. Factory pirates...interesting.Sedonari seeing himself as a futurist because he saw Italy’s future as being a great war instead of in putting the just completed Great War behind them. Of course, he also sees himself as a futurist because he embraces the polyglot of Fiume political and cultural mores. And because he’s a arms maker who dreams of airborne torpedoes. I wonder if Fiume’s Futurism wins the day as it looks down its nose at all the plethora of other movements that are making the Free City home.Secondari and The Ace’s discussion of Woodrow Wilson’s stroke, the failure of The League of Nations, and the ascension of Colonel House reeks of Machiavelli as they contemplate their future and give themselves new titles and uniforms. I never realized that Wilson actually had a stroke in that timeframe and that House did step in as a shadow president.Russian Marxist-Leninism is mirroring in this story. Anarcho-Syndicalism has a leading Prophet and a secret police force striking out at the wealthy bourgeoisie of Fiume.When the Italians go home, the soldiers of fortune and stateless refugees come in, it reminds me of the pre and during WW2 era Casablanca.Playing on the Marxist-Leninist paradigm, I wonder if Secondari is Stalin, with The Prophet as Lenin, and The Ace as Trotsky.Lovecraft and Howard are more propagandist and provocateur than spy.Wisdom:The real Prophet and Ace did free Fiume from Yugoslavia after the League and ruled over an anarchist city-state for fifteen months. The story does take a hard turn into science fiction, alternate history, and pastiche. Wilson, Hitler, and Mussolini dying much earlier than they did in our timeline. Scientific discoveries and projects occurring earlier in this timelilne than in ours. Missed Opportunity:With as well done and characterized as this was, it deserved a better ending._________________________________________________Last Page Sound:What? With the twisted way this was formated and formed, I wasn’t expecting a standard ending. But this leaves us in an odd place. Maybe “Say What” even more than What?.Author Assessment:I love how this was written. Just wish the story would have been...more.Editorial Assessment:Love the story, just wish an editor would have pushed for more story and an ending.Knee Jerk Reaction:glad I read itDisposition of Book:Irving Public LibraryIrving, TXSouth CampusDewey Decimal System: FSTEWould recommend to:genre fans_________________________________________________
    • 3/5
      *sigh*

      I wanted to like this more than I actually liked it. It's an alternate history story based on some events that are so... zany that you could write them up and people would probably call it alternate history, even though they definitely happened. It feels like if I knew the source material better, I'd probably enjoy the story better.

      (It's impressively timely.)
    • 3/5
      A lot of people probably don’t know about this as it seems someone fucked up the Nielsen data entry so badly that Amazon lists the book as by John Coulthart, Rick Klaw and Warren Ellis, and doesn’t mention Bruce Sterling anywhere. But now you know about it, and being a fan of Sterling’s work… Apparently, after World War I, the city of Fiume, now Rijeka, was claimed by both Italy and the recently-formed Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. But a group of anarchists, led by the Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, seized power and declared the independent Regency of Carnaro. The city became something of a social experiment, but the fascists seized control after a couple of years and Fiume was annexed by Italy. Sterling’s short novel makes much of the birth of Futurism – indeed, the major character dreams of building “air torpedoes” and such, the sort of technology displayed in Lang’s Metropolis. But Pirate Utopia is also about the birth of fascism in Italy, and how it gained traction among the establishment. Of course, we’re seeing that happen on a daily basis here in the UK and the US. Pirate Utopia is a fascinating piece of history, but… as a piece of writing it felt a little lacking. Sterling was never much of a stylist, but I remember novels such as Distraction and Holy Fire being well-written novels. Pirate Utopia, on the other hand, seems to be written entirely in simple declarative sentences, which makes all feel a bit dumbed-down. I get that there’s a lot going on in the book, but it does feel a little Like Sterling didn’t trust his readers and so kept it simple. I suspect this is one for fans.
    • 2/5
      Picked this up at the library because of the cool cover. Not much plot. Not very engaging characters. Simple (to the point of childish) prose (with some brief exceptions). The alternate history and political satire have possibilities. To me, this seems more like a sketch for the setting of a story than it does a completed novella. There are some clever ideas but they remain underdeveloped.
    • 4/5
      Fizzing alternative history about history I didn't know, so had to reread to untangle fact and fiction. Great fun to see on what small things a different story of the 20th century could unfold – though I don't think anyone's tried this particular scenario.