Globalhead is a collection of 13 “dazzling” stories. IMHO, maybe three of them are really good, and the rest I didn’t care for much.

After wading through the first seven stories, ‘The Moral Bullet’ is where the book starts picking up. Sniffy, the main character, appears as a 12 year old child, but in reality is an older person who invented ‘FREE’, the Free Radical Endocrine Enhancer, which keeps people young. As a result of FREE, society in general has collapsed and has reverted to small territorial holdings, or fiefdoms. The Europeans, who have recovered faster from the societal effects of FREE, are looking for Sniffy, to put him to work in their labs on a new drug. Once found, Sniffy has his own solution. It’s a reasonably fast paced story with an amusing end.

‘We See Things Differently’ is a story of an Islamic journalist reporting on the life of Americas biggest rock star, Tom Boston. The story leads you to believe that there is such a thing as a moderate Islamic, up until the end. What happens is no major surprise, but it’s still an enjoyable read.

‘Hollywood Kremlin’ and ‘Are You For 86′ feature a character named Leggy Starlitz. He seems like a familiar type of character, particularly if you’ve ever read any Tim Dorsey (good stuff!). Serge is described as [...] obsessive, psychopathic, and frequently homicidal, but Storms serves as the anti-hero in Dorsey’s works due to his strong sense of moral absolutism and justice. This seems to describe Starlitz fairly well. He’s an enjoyable character, and I like these types of stories.

The last story, ‘Dori Bangs’, seems sort of Hunter S. Thompson-esque, although I’ve never actually read any HST, only about him. It makes amusing filler to get thirteen stories in, but it’s nothing amazing. Unfortunately, it’s still one of the better ones in the book.

Overall, Globalhead shows the characters Sterling is capable of creating, but is nowhere near as good as Heavy Weather or Islands In The Net, or the very enjoyable story, The Bicycle Repairman. If you’re looking for stories that really showcase his talent as a writer, I’d skip this one and go with A Good Old-fashioned Future.

Other people seem to have a more favored opinion of Sterling, with his Wikipedia page being a good example.

Publisher: Bantam, Year: 1992, ISBN: 0-553-56281-9, Price: $5.99