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The only other book I've read that comes at all close to kinship with this fascinating space epic is Stross's 2005 Accelerando, which appears to have been influenced both indirectly (in form & style) and directly (posthumanism & lobters!) by Schismatrix, which predates Accelerando by two decades. In both cases there is at least one tongue-lolling, brain boiling, oh-wow SF concept worked into the story in every paragraph. Such a high ratio of idea-to-story weighs a little heavy on the reading at
Sterling's highly detailed future Worlds and Races reminds me of Iain M. Banks at his best in the Culture novels. There's usually a large dose of social critique in Sterling's books and this is no exception with it's interspecies animosity and interaction having parallels with our own planet and it's current and historical cultural and racial conflicts. There's a significant degree of anthropomorphism with the aliens but hey! at least it's not bunny rabbits with human emotions. I'd recommend all...
I am not quite sure what to say about this book. It's not going to be for everyone. Many recommended it to me as a classic science fiction novel with cyberpunk flare (though not so much really) and a great future vision for author and seer Bruce Sterling. For the language of futurism alone, I loved it. Like this passage on pages 246-47: "In the hands of the Zen Serotonists, the Ring Council struggled for stability; as a result, it was falling behind. The cutting edge of genetics technology had b...
A very difficult book to get through. And honestly not a well written because the book's ideas are all over the place and near impossible to figure out what is going on. It took me almost the entire book to unravel the main premise was two cousins with different philosophies of life are out to get each other. There is plenty of political manipulation and deception. A couple of interesting ideas but far and few between.
Probably more 3 1/2 than 4 for me, or maybe 3.75.I'm told this is a seminal Cyberpunk book. Well, there's a lot of punk, for sure, but it's very different from the other seminal work, the Sprawl series by William Gibson. I must say that after reading a ton of Sprawl-lookalike books and movies, this was a breath of fresh air.However I felt that it was *very* handwavy about the ultimate evolution of intelligence. According to the story, humanity eventually would reach a cusp and "vanish" - none of...
I read this due to a recommendation at the end of Alastair Reynolds' Galactic North. I thought it was pretty good, but definitely more intellectually stimulating than entertaining. He has some pretty fascinating ideas, although the overall plot itself is a little lackluster. Definitely worth reading, if only to see some ancestral ideas that evolved their way into Reynolds' Revelation Space universe.
Imaginative and interesting 80s sci-fi with no plot. Damn, this coulda been way more readable...
Bruce Sterling was one of the leaders of the Cyperpunk movement in science fiction and Schismatrix is the central novel of Sterling's shaper/mechanist universe. The Schismatrix is the whole extraterrestrial mankind after departure from exploited and polluted earth to orbital stations around the moon, in the asteroid belt, the Saturn rings or other places in the solar system. A schisma of mankind into shapers and mechanists took place with shapers focussing on genetical engineering and mechanists...
I read this a looong time ago so I'm sure my tastes have changed. Nonetheless, I maintain a special place in my memory for this space cyberpunky collection. Not all books inspire me to draw scenes or characters from its pages, but this one certainly did so I've always remembered it.
I had written Bruce Sterling off as a relic of the cyberpunk era, big mistake. The wow factor is pretty big on this. Mind mutating, WTF, idea per sentence science fiction with shades at time of Bester, Triptree jr. Delaney, Barrington J. Bailey(who blurbs it) William S. Burroughs, and Ballard. Dense, filled with absurd humor and grotesque surreal visions, as human future and form breaks and cascades into increasing odd shapes. I feel a little buzzed after finishing this. This and a couple of sho...
this is the one that i asked bruce to sign. and old tattered paperback copy, but treasured. then his wife asked him to turn down the led zepplin because the kids were trying to sleep. or something.
Eh. Hard science sci-fi with a psychedelic edge. Mechs versus shapers in a diplomatic battle for the something or other. Covers centuries, feels like it took months to slog through.I'm reading it twenty-five years too late.
This book has been on my list after reading an excellent short story by Sterling dealing with this same universe. Well after finally finding a copy of this and reading it, I can say I wasn't missing much. Like a lot of SF, the characters seem like cardboard cutouts, and the plot is not good to say the least. Actually, this book is confusing as hell. Why are the characters doing what they are doing? What is motivating them? Sterling does present a colorful vision of the future where humans abando...
This is a good science fiction novel, but it is very heavy and in the end I appreciated the short stories in the back better than the actual Schismatrix part.
At times, my mind would wander while reading Schismatrix. But not in the usual way wherein a thought much more interesting than what's on the page enters my head. Instead, I found myself often just musing about the ideas I'd just read a paragraph ago or even earlier in the book.Schism is so packed with ideas and dwells so little on any one of them that it was sometimes a bit difficult to keep reading, wait, that idea was so interesting...the ramifications...we can't go on yet, I have to think ab...
Interesting ideas, but horrible writing. Plot and character development were poor and context was nonexistent. Couldn't finish it.
I picked up this book because I couldn't remember it from the first time I had read it, twenty years ago. I needed a bathtub book (one that I wouldn't mind if it fell in the water), and I wanted to decide if I should keep it on my shelf or pass it on. Within the first thirty pages I had dropped all my other books and was secretly heading off to my room to sneak in a few more pages.I loved the way Sterling balanced almost overwhelming creativity with cool, calm, and precise prose. I loved the way...
been meaning to read this for a really, really, REALLY long time... finally got around to it. i was expecting cyperpunk but it's not, it's far-future space opera; feels a lot like varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline. only a lot longer and not as much fun. the ideas are great (and they just keep coming), and the book's written in a kind of hallucinogenic countercultural michael moorcockian mode, but the story is just... really slow. like, "wait, is there even a story?" type slow. it was hard to finish....
Probably closer to a 2.5. I came across this book because alastair reynolds rated it so highly at the end of his book Galactic North. I can definitely see how Schismatrix inspired him and his work. However, this book (Schismatrix) was a very frustrating read at times. There are clearly some big, interesting social ideas that were quite intriguing but poor characterization and the lack of the an overarching plot made it very difficult for me to want to keep going. In fact, I put this on my "did n...