Paintwork

Paintwerk is a trio of linked cyberpunk stories strongly reminiscent of Bruce Sterling (“Deep Eddy”, “Bicycle Repairman” and “Taklamakan”). The key technologies here are spex and augmented reality, the themes about art and authentic creation and selling out to some massive corporate cloud that can only parasitize off the raw energy of The Street.

The first story, about graffiti artists in Bristol, is by far the best, with an appropriately weird cast of characters and a wry askance glance at a future where Banksy is as respected as Picasso, yet local taggers still get nabbed and ABSO’ed by the cops. The others, which go into gaming and virtual colonization, are more style over substance but still a lot of fun.

Good quick read, which even five years later has some of that near-future gloss on it.