Let me get this out of the way. I am a Sterling fan, I love everything he's done unconditionally, but I think A Good Old Fashioned Future, is his best short story collection, and the best introduction to his work. From the soft and thoughtful "Maneki Neko", to the gonzo cyber-entrepreneur-terrorist-punk of "The Littlest Jackel" to the tour de force trio of linked stories at the end, Sterling shows us precisely how strange our very human future is going to be, and how we might survive and thrive in it.

*** Updated for 2024 ***

What a weird journey it has been in the 13 years since I last cracked open this book. I'm glad I returned to it, because if anything these stories have only improved with age (with the exception of the Rudy Rucker collab "Big Jelly", which was never much good). After another cycle or three of tech hype bullshit, the parodic take on 90s dotcom boom culture has golden nostalgic glow. But in this are four utterly serious, damn near perfect stories about technology, their consequences, and the way that people living in our future see their present. "Taklamakan, in particular, is a gem.