Customer Reviews

Schismatrix

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

Over a hundred years of future human history are laid out in this imaginative and sometimes bizarre novel by Bruce Sterling. The protagonist, young firebrand Abelard Lindsay, is exiled from the satellite of his birth after an act of youthful rebellion goes awry. His subsequent adventures take him (and us) on a kaleidoscopic ride through the inhabited reaches of the solar system. In his struggle to survive in a series of brutally harsh environments, he must deal with the vicissitudes of living, loving and acquiring credit in an ever-accelerating society, and at the same time stay one step ahead of his dread nemesis, his treacherous former friend Constantine. As a backdrop to his story, there is the ongoing social conflict between Mechanists, who favor advanced cybernetics, and the Shapers, who would rather modify humanity genetically.

Devotees of cyberpunk will almost certainly enjoy this novel, which moves at a frenetic pace, includes frequent references to prosthetic devices, and tries to fit a modest degree of real science into its outlandish space opera. Certainly the young Lindsay could be considered a punk, and not a particularly likable one, at that, although he seems to mellow as the (many) decades fly by.

But the problems with this book are many, and tend to undercut the positives, the biggest mistake being that Sterling just tries to do too much. There's a point in the novel where Lindsay has successfully dealt with the pirates, liberated the station, heard the news that the aliens have landed, and he's even got the girl, and this reader found himself thinking, "this would have been a good place to end the story - too bad it's only halfway through the book". The problem is that too many of Sterling's ideas get pretty short shift, lost in a cascade of characters and events and locales and discoveries and treacheries and escapes and suicides and lies and martyrdoms, etc... Sterling might have written a whole series of much better novels by approaching each piece of his tale as a separate work, rather than cramming it all into one volume. Admittedly, the scope of the whole is admirable, and serves to make Sterling's point if we concede it to be that "whatever happens life wins out in the end", but ultimately the pacing is too erratic, the plot too episodic, and the characters too unsympathetic to merit a real recommendation.

There are two main political factions in the masses of humanity that
have spread to the stars. The Shapers, and the Mechanists. These
factions have two different schools of thought on posthuman alteration
of the body, the former organic, the latter taking the cyborg route.
They are not the only organisations that exist, but are the most
influential.

I sometimes wonder whatever happened to good old-fashioned science fiction, the traditional type stuff of Arthur C. Clark and Isaac Asimov. Seems the old sci-fi has diversified into so many subgenres now I can't locate the good stuff. But you could hardly ask for a better sampling of traditional space adventure than this.

And overall, much like other famous space adventure novels, the vast scope and plot of "Schismatrix" serves at least somewhat as a metaphor for our own present day world. It's the story of a society divided, and a series of covert wars among the different schisms, and the life of one lone maverick who tries to stand clear of all of them and find prosperity and greatness separate and apart.

As an aside, I think the genre Bruce has been identified with, "cy6erpunk," is more ephemeral than most fashionable genres, and is often just a trendy buzzword. There is little or nothing in this novel to identify as cyberpunk but plenty to describe it as traditional science fiction much like Asimov or Roddenberry would write. If Bruce ever wrote cyberpunk this wasn't it IMO.

Bruce is a high-energy writer who is well-known for his short stories. In fact, a few of them took place in this same Schismatrix universe, and were later included I think in the "Schismatrix Plus" collection. One of my very favorite shorts of his is one of these and can be found also in the collection "Crystal Express."

I found this to be a pretty easy read, and like much traditional science fiction, is not extremely emotional stuff, but focuses much on science and technology. It is not without some emotional depth, but anyway is focused on the loner protagonist, who is in fact pretty alien in his ways compared to us. I think Bruce empathized with him to some extent though.

I'd say if you like sf and want a good intro to Bruce, this is a great way to go. But I'd suggest the "Schismatrix Plus" instead, because the shorts included there, while not essential to this plot, are great reading also, and help fill out this universe a tiny bit. And besides, if you are some science-fiction-readin' weirdo like me, you will finish this book in a heartbeat and be ready for more.

This is one fascinating but frustrating novel. The Sterling sociology lesson is in full swing, but between the many treatises there is a sort of plot about a solar system torn in two by the genetically altered (Shapers) and the technically life-enhanced ("Mechanists"). They wage a political war and perform dirty deeds for the entire length of the book, meeting an alien race along the way. The main character, Abelard Malcolm Tyler Lindsey, survives the ages and finally just drifts off as an entity (a la Dave Bowman). There is a fascination to this novel--there are beautiful passages and interesting ideas, but this is hard-core Sterling and not at all an easy read.

I really wanted to like this novel. It had a clever name, an amalgamation of the Great Schism that separate Catholicism and Protestantism, and Matrix, like the movie with the same title. (Note: the novel is pronounced Shiz-mat-rix, with a short a, rhymes with schematics). A classic cyberpunk title. However, this novel is anything but user-friendly. I don't know if pharmaceuticals are needed for appreciating this novel, or if the author used them when frantically writing, in between vacuuming the roof of his house and such. The novel moves at such a frantic pace that within one sentence the entire setting can change and this happens more than a few times. It's difficult to know the point of the plot; perhaps that life is worth living. The novel is a cross between Heinlein's Time Enough For Love, Bester's The Stars My Destination, and petting a sea urchin.

In case you've also seen a book titled Schismatrix Plus and was wondering what that was, note that it's not a sequel. Instead it's the novel Schismatrix and his related Mechanist-Shaper short stories. The short stories are interesting and enjoyable. In fact Sterling seems to excel with his short stories. His story "Flowers of Edo" is where I got interested in his style. I would recommend his short stories, but this novel is another matter.

Humanity has balkanized into a number of factions, with the Shapers and Mechanists being the most powerful. The Shapers have reshaped their bodies genetically. This includes such drastic things as replacing all the E. Coli in their intestines with enzymes. The Mechanists are like the Borg of Star Trek, they use mechanical prosthetics to enhance themselves. If you think the Mechanists are the cleaner of the two, think again. Cockroaches and bacteria are prevalent in Mechanist environments. Every five years the Mechanists need to have the bacterial growth scraped and UV-burned off their skin. That's one thing prevalent throughout his writings, this sort of creepiness. Expect more of it.

However, don't let the war make you think this is some majestic good vs. evil epic space war. Battles are mostly low key. There is lot's of narration and dialog. Sterling self-claims his crammed prose. No kidding. Adjectives rule supreme in this novel; as many as possible are crammed into each sentence. If one would do a histogram of adjectives, this novel would be on the far right tail of the bell curve. Here's an excerpt: " He always wore his spacesuit, [something something], and [multiple length modifiers] body odor came through its [multiple adjectives] collar with [multiple adjectives] pungency." Sentences like this go on and on and on and on and on and on and on throughout the novel. And there's no shortage of hyphenated words, like long-fermented, eye-watering. On one page, there were no less than 11 hyphenated words, plus one triple one.

Similar to the prosthetics of the Borg, the sentences themselves seem interchangeable. Here's another excerpt of a dialogue:

"What was your brigade?

I'm no Cataclyst.

I have your weapon here.

Constantine pulled a ... vial from his ... jacket ..."

You may as well interchange your own sentences: `The tree fell in the forest; it made no sound' or `the space ship went into orbit; it's boots were muddy.' Give it a try. It'll make as much sense.

There are times when the novel seems profound. I would find myself backtracking at times to understand some point, and I would go back 5, then 10, then 20 pages to try to understand something and would just give up and go back to where I was. It's hard to say you read this novel, it's more like your eyes glance over the words, and on occasion you absorb some of it. Since the novel fluctuates from the profound to the mundane an average of 2-1/2 stars seemed appropriate.

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!

I've read this novel 4 times, which beats Dune and The Silmarillion by one.

This is easily one of the most richly imagined futures ever conceived.

As far as it being "inacessible": go read one of those awful Dune prequels if you want to be spoon-fed your predigested pap. Come back when you grow up...