Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of The Zenith Angle

The Zenith Angle
althea avatar reviewed on + 774 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


I keep wanting to really like Bruce Sterling, but then just - not. The Zenith Angle, is, reportedly, a techno-thriller about computer/Internet security. Sadly, unless you are the Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security to the Bush Administration (who wrote a glowing blurb for this book), Internet Security is just not that thrilling.
In this novel, the main character, Van, leaves his corporate job as a computer geek to go work for the government. He finds himself underpaid and broke, trying to convince people that Internet Security really is important, Meanwhile, his wife is doing well, working as an astronomer on land owned by a chacter whom Ted Turner would not be pleased by. This gets tied in to a malfunctioning spy satellite that Van is asked to fix. Of course, Foreigners are Out To Get Us. Which would be OK, if it was interesting or exciting. Maybe it could have been, in the hands of William Gibson or Neal Stephenson. Here, it's not.