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Warren Ellis reviews Bruce Sterling's "Love is Strange," a paranormal romance

Cory Doctorow at 1:49 pm Fri, Feb 1, 2013

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Last month, I blogged the new Bruce Sterling book, Love is Strange, an ebook-only paranormal romance. I haven't had a chance to read it yet (it's in my queue), but Warren Ellis has, and he's written up a review that makes me want to read it RIGHT NOW:

Bruce likes breaking things in his fiction. I often see things his characters love getting ruined somehow. It’s hard to think of anyone else who enjoys the casual harrowing of his characters so much.

It is a romance. Bruce does in fact have fun playing with old romance-fiction tropes. There are points where you can almost hear him cackling as he rattles around a LOVE BOAT port of call and scatters poison romances across the sun-kissed trattorias and streets. There is the paranormal: or, at least, people who think they’re paranormal, and people who call each other paranormal. It’s also, to some extent, about the delusions around these things. The female romantic lead is a loon, the male romantic lead is a Silicon Canal alpha-drone, the supporting cast are grotesques and I’ll be surprised if Mr Sterling is ever again invited to a European futurism conference.

booklist 2013: LOVE IS STRANGE, Bruce Sterling [Warren Ellis]

Love is Strange [Kindle edition]

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  books • happy mutants • review • romance

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  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

    I’m guessing there aren’t any sparkly vampires or horny werewolves in this.

    • Ronald Pottol

      That would be correct. Well, mostly. ;-)

      • Ronald Pottol

        I liked it.

  • bengee

    I love bruce sterling and have pretty much all his books, as books. I want them in physical form! blah blah blah poor me in the future