This man Calvino has been dead for some seventeen years now. He remains very different. It is very, very hard to write a Calvino pastiche or a parody. He cannot be assimilated or melted down. This editor, reviewer, translator, great critic, this antiquarian futurist, this child of scientists who told jokes on the universe. Light jokes, but not the easy, silly jokes. "Molto pensato." Much thought-out. Light, swift, exact, visible, multiplicitous, and consistent, and always molto pensato. His work persists into this millennium because he deserves that.

Many writers who grow older become loquacious and never shut up. As his own time passed, Italo Calvino grew more compact and brief. I am not going to keep you unnecessarily, ladies and gentlemen.

{Bruce Sterling in Italy, in Infinite Matrix Nov,22,'02}