I loved Schismatrix. I have always wanted to see more from that universe.

I am reading Future Now currently. Parts are fascinating, other parts kind of dull.

Wow, my preferences are exactly the reverse of yours. For me, Schismatrix is entertaining and has some interesting ideas, but Holy Fire is my favorite Sterling novel by far. Probably my favorite sf novel, period. For me, something happened around Heavy Weather in Sterling's writing -- his descriptions, his characterizations, his timing, his themes, everything suddenly acquired new depth. Characters got embedded in real families and real histories and real psyches. I can't explain, but everything got a lot more real in his 90s novels, somehow. The annoying chicness of some of the details in Holy Fire is a brittle surface with all kinds of depths beneath. YMMV, of course! I love Distraction too, very hilarious (but it feels a lot like a Clinton-era novel now, a W-era novel would look a lot different I think -- Zeitgeist feels a bit like a lark. What's he up to now?

Future Now seems to me the best of the recent futurological navel gazing. He's definitely gambling all the singularitarian brigade is wrong for at least a half century -- maybe that makes him seem a smidge less sexy than Kurzweil, Moravec, and all that crew, but again, for me, Sterling's version has the unmistakable ring of truth about it. The first and last chapters are esp. great. The middle part about warlords and crime bosses feels to me mostly like the middle part of the North American continent -- flyover material.