Bruce Sterling’s “Black Swan” has nothing to do with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis engaging in girl on girl  action. (And, I’d completely forgotten about that movie until I started reviewing this story.) Unlike the 2010 film of the same name, Sterling’s story, published in 2009, isn’t about ballerinas. Instead it’s about a technology journalist named Luca and one of his source, Massimo Montaldo. Luca thinks Montaldo may be an industrial spy. However, Montaldo’s true nature is far more fantastic. Montaldo is an Italian über patriot, and he’s a rival for a certain world leader’s wife. 

The title refers to the black swan theory rather than the black swan problem. The term black swan came from Juvenal. Ancient and medieval Europeans didn’t think black swans existed, hence the term symbolized things which don’t exist. This proved to be wrong when black swans were found in Western Australia. So black swans went from symbolizing things that don’t exist to symbolizing discoveries that undermine a set of beliefs. The black swan theory as explained by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is that most major historical events, technological advances, and artistic accomplishments are unexpected, unpredictable, surprises.

Luca, Sterling’s narrator, sees the black swan this way: “A stroke of genius is a black swan, beyond prediction, beyond expectation. If a black swan never arrives, how on Earth could its absence be guessed?

“The chasm between Massimo’s version of Italy and my Italy was invisible-yet all encompassing. It was exactly like the stark difference between the man I was now, and the man I’d been one short hour ago.

“A black swan can never be predicted, expected, or categorized. A black swan, when it arrives, cannot even be recognized as a black swan. When the black swan assaults us, with the wingbeats of some rapist Jupiter, then we must rewrite history.” (The Year’s Best Science Fiction Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection 83)

It turns out that Montaldo travels between dimensions. In his native dimension, Italy is a technological power, and, of course, the secret of traveling between dimensions has been discovered. However, as Montaldo explains it, he actually creates each alternate dimension before he travels to it. He declares, “without me as the observer, this universe doesn’t even exist.” (Ibid) By the end, Luca will find out if Montaldo’s statement is true.