Helpful Score: 1
Dizzying future history of humanity, January 13, 2004
Reviewer: Garrett J. Menning (Albuquerque, NM)
In Schismatrix, Bruce Sterling takes us on a high-velocity spin through the future of our species. He follows the long career of Abelard Lindsay, genetically altered using the revolutionary technologies of a group called the Shapers, in a series of adventures and intrigues that take him across the solar system in a decades-long battle with the ancient Mechanists, whose power comes from the use of their own, prosthetic technologies. These and other competing groups are knitted together into the Schismatrix with the arrival of a species of powerful aliens called the Investors.
Sterling has a fertile and unruly imagination, describing the welter of new societies and political systems that develop along with the dizzying advance of technology and the interaction between humanity and the Investors. Reading this book is like taking a ride on a bullet train across colorful new territory-fascinating and exhilarating, but not wholly satisfying by the time the trip is through. The ride is simply too fast and jarring to allow the reader to fully digest or understand the experience.
Journey through the future of humanity, July 8, 1998
Reviewer: A reader
Don't feel comfortable with the planet your on? Change your body to cope with the environment! This book explores one possible future for humanity - better living through genetic engineering! Set against a backdrop of a seedy, corrupt, solar system, we are shown the survivalist nature of mankind at its best (and worst). sexy, explosive, witty and pure science-fiction, this highly underrated book is well worth a read!
Reviewer: Garrett J. Menning (Albuquerque, NM)
In Schismatrix, Bruce Sterling takes us on a high-velocity spin through the future of our species. He follows the long career of Abelard Lindsay, genetically altered using the revolutionary technologies of a group called the Shapers, in a series of adventures and intrigues that take him across the solar system in a decades-long battle with the ancient Mechanists, whose power comes from the use of their own, prosthetic technologies. These and other competing groups are knitted together into the Schismatrix with the arrival of a species of powerful aliens called the Investors.
Sterling has a fertile and unruly imagination, describing the welter of new societies and political systems that develop along with the dizzying advance of technology and the interaction between humanity and the Investors. Reading this book is like taking a ride on a bullet train across colorful new territory-fascinating and exhilarating, but not wholly satisfying by the time the trip is through. The ride is simply too fast and jarring to allow the reader to fully digest or understand the experience.
Journey through the future of humanity, July 8, 1998
Reviewer: A reader
Don't feel comfortable with the planet your on? Change your body to cope with the environment! This book explores one possible future for humanity - better living through genetic engineering! Set against a backdrop of a seedy, corrupt, solar system, we are shown the survivalist nature of mankind at its best (and worst). sexy, explosive, witty and pure science-fiction, this highly underrated book is well worth a read!
