For the German site DIE ZUKUNFT, Christian Endres praises Bruce Sterling’s PIRATE UTOPIA.

The key to the story is, however, only in the appendix, which consists of an afterword by the author, editor and world-fantasy-award-winner Christopher Brown, a remarks by the accomplished illustrator John Coulthart and above all a long interview with Bruce Sterling himself. In this interview he assigns “Pirate Utopia” as its environment-related contribution to the Italian subject of fantascienza a – and as an allegorical warning that should show in grotesquely distorted mirror image of the alternative world and the Alternate History how much the present policy has lost its connection to reality How easily extreme political ideologies can mix, and how violently people are looking for individual life models and solutions.

Not a simple book, even a very strange book, but also an indisputably extraordinary and cool, gorgeously styled book, which especially as a hardcover some.

(Translation from German courtesy of Google)

Davor Mandic on the Croatian site NOVI LIST writes about the book, Sterling, and Rijeka.

Just as a few years ago promised, one of the most famous SF writers in the world, Texan Bruce Sterling action his new novel,“Pirate Utopia” , situated in the – river.

One of the creators of cyberpunk has for some time inspired period of Rijeka’s history from the twenties of the last century, known as the Free State of Rijeka , or perhaps better said period is closely related to Gabriellea D’Annunzio.

If he wanted to write a book about it, has announced another 2013 when hosting the Rijeka Festival Republic. Speaking in a lecture at the festival, Sterling is a river of that time described as the then world capital of piracy and a kind of social laboratory with positive, but negative outcomes, but this week the US magazine Wired repeated his fascination with this part of Rijeka’s history.

– Believe me, what was happening in Rijeka is truly one of the strangest things that happened in the 20th century, said the famous writer stating that Rijeka then got a brief period of independence under the rule of artists and revolutionaries, and as such was fruitful ground for various kinds of radical ideas – of socialism, anarcho-syndicalism over to fascism.

Although the book is “fresh”, criticism that can be found on the Internet are a row of praise and talk about the “fantastic and fun alternative historical story” with “a series of crazy, interesting characters” through which Sterling examines alternative social arrangements.

As it is one of the most respected authors SF genre, there is no doubt that this the novel have a large number of readers around the world, which will certainly contribute to the introduction that the book gave another world-famous writer, the Englishman Warren Ellis.

(Translation from Croatian courtesy of Google)

For more info on PIRATE UTOPIA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and illustrations by John Coulthart