Sterling does go a little overboard with the F-6; the anticipation is built up so much that when he finally describes it, the disappointment is palpable. Words simply fail to capture the idea of such a colossal event.

However, this book is about people, and how they are dealing with a world in climatic catastrophe. Consequently, the characters are rich and the dialogue is textured. The characters are not ginger-bread people, each is noticeably different from one another. Many very clever lines from this book and some astute insights as to the nature of modern American thought.


Not that heavy "Weather"   January 26, 2001
 5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Bruce Sterling's "Heavy Weather" has an excellent concept that is just not brought off all that well. A story about a group of post-Greenhouse effect stormchasers going after the BIG one (tornado) should be faster paced and much scarier than this novel. Sterling also does not give a very coherent view of what the world is like during its period of so-called "heavy weather," given that all of the action takes place in Texas and Oklahoma. There is also an evil consortium subplot that makes very little sense. That said, most of the the main characters are quite likable and very believable. Their story is just not as remarkable as it ought to be.

Overall, I would give this book a marginal recommendation to sci-fi buffs and perhaps disaster buffs. It moves slowly at times, but there are enough interesting ideas to make it worth your while if you're interested in the subject matter.


Bruce Sterling's Heavy Weather   December 5, 2000
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Heavy Weather is not a bad book, but it is not one of my favorite novels. While the plot can be slow at times and is a little predictable, the concept is interesting and the book is very easy to read. If you have a short attention span, I suggest that you do not read this book. The story has a very large lull in the middle. Another downfall is that the F6 tornado is extremely over-hyped. Sterling could have done much more with it, but didn't. The plot and characters are developed well, however, and the story itself is refreshingly different.

Heavy Weather is much like one of Sterling's other works, Holy Fire. The writing styles of both books are very similar. Both books deal with medical technology. The theme of whether or not medicine can be too high tech seems to run through both books. Some characters even seem like they could fit in with the characters in Holy Fire. In both books, Sterling focuses on the people in his story, rather than the technology itself. He writes more about how technology affects people.

The main characters, Jane and Alex, are two siblings that were never very close to each other. Fulfilling her role as the big sister, Jane saves Alex from a life of black market medical treatments, and takes him to experience her lifestyle. Jane lives with the Storm Troupe, a group of people that hack weather. The Troupe chases tornadoes gathering all the information they can get, in hopes that they will figure out the secrets behind one of Mother Nature's mysteries. Their mission is centered on a hypothesized F6 sized tornado, their Holy Grail.

One attraction to this book is how different it is from other cyberpunk novels. I started reading this book expecting another classic cyberpunk storyline, but found a book that could have easily not been cyberpunk at all. The book seemed more along the lines of a natural-disaster-punk novel. The movie Twister, which came out two years after Heavy Weather, shares many similarities with it. Both show the group of outsiders who are only interested in solving the mystery of the tornado. Both show the main characters chasing the big tornado, which ends up making their relationship with each other better. There is even an appearance in both the book and the movie, by the cow that gets caught in the tornado.