A review by cjelli
Pirate Utopia by Bruce Sterling

4.0

Comfortably in the uncanny valley of novellas that feels like they should be novels; what's there is excellent, but just as things are shaping up -- The End arrives. Stuffed so full of interesting ideas and characters that there's no room left for a plot, I really want to recommend this based solely on the strength of how it pulls together different trains of thought, and for basing on alternate history in a fascinating and underused setting, but a novella without a story is a hard sell.

The retro-futurist illustrations were, separately, an unexpected joy.