Bruce Sterling shows that he truly is a visionary in this collection of short stories. Whether focussed on the present -- e.g, Code -- the future -- e.g., The Scab's Progress or the past -- The Blemmye's Stratagem -- Sterling shows an acute deftness in narrative and worldbuilding, telling compelling stories in worlds that complement but do not eclipse the narrative. Truly a gem. ( )

A mixed bag. Some of the stories are delightful, and told in Sterling's distinctive voice. The two collaborations with Di Filippo and Rucker I found a bit unreadable. There's everything from contemporary fiction, which as he points out would have been seen as visionary SF in the '70s, to design fiction, to 800-word pieces for Nature – a format that I hope Nature has arranged to publish its own collection of. ( )

Recommended. Skip the collobarations. The collaborations ruin interesting stories with gobbledy-gook attempting to be lit-witty or ribosome-savvy or erudite (sometimes all in one sentence). Other reviewers have enjoyed these two stories, but I'm glad I won't have to read them again.

Visionary in Residence collects 13 stories.
Really very good:
"In Paradise" (**** 1/2)
"The Growthing" (****)
"Code" (**** 1/2)
"Luciferase" (****)

Two Very Good Fantasy:
"The Blemmye's Stratagem" (****)
"The Denial" (*** 1/2)

Fun and interesting:
"Ivory Tower" (*** 1/2)
"Message Found In A Bottle" (***)
"Homo Sapiens Declared Extinct" (*** 1/2)
"User-Centric" (***)
"The Necropolis of Thebes" (***)

Boring and too hard to read:
"The Scab's Progress (with Paul Di Filippo)" (*)
"Junk DNA (with Rudy Rucker)" (**)
(Sterling seems to suffer only when collaborating) ( )