As of now, I have read six of Bruce Sterling's twelve novels, and "Schismatrix" is the best. It was the first of his books I read, soon after reading "Mirrorshades" (1986), the foundational cyberpunk anthology which he edited. The main cyberpunk preoccupation in "Schismatrix" is genetic engineering, but it is combined with a more far-reaching view of humanity's future evolution that draws on Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" (1930).
The driving force in the novel is the conflict between two powerful factions -- the dominant Mechanists, who augment themselves with computer interfaces, AI, and other technology, and the rebel Shapers, who use genetic engineering instead for improvement, adaptation to new environments, and competitive edge with their rivals. The Mechanists control emanates from their Circumsolar Asteroid Worlds in the asteroid belt, while the centralized Shaper Ring Council is located just where the name indicates.
The main character, Abelard Lindsay, was raised by a leading Mechanist family, but defects to the Shapers, and thus begins a wild tale as he navigates and operates in this future world shaped by large-scale factional conflict as well as interpersonal rivalry and conflict.
At a certain point some of the conflict is suppressed when powerful aliens arrive in the Solar System, known as The Investors because they promote business and trade instead of war. Here is a passage to give the flavor:
"By fits and starts the world entered a new age. The aliens benignly accepted a semidivine mystique. Millennial fervor swept the system. Detente came into vogue. People began to speak, for the first time, of the Schismatrix -- of a posthuman solar system, diverse yet unified, where tolerance would rule and every faction would have a share" (133).
But factions continue to go their own ways, moving farther and farther apart as the prospect of speciation becomes more and more likely:
"Mankind had always been surrounded by the miraculous. Nothing much had ever come of it. Under the shadow of cosmic revelations, life still swathed itself in comforting routine. The breakaway factions were much more bizarre than ever before, but people had grown used to this, and their horror had lessened ... The new multiple humanities hurtled blindly toward their unknown destinations, and the vertigo of acceleration struck deep ... Whole societies were paralyzed by the mind-blasting vistas of absolute possibility" (240-1).
While the novel works on the level of its central characters like a proper novel should, I find it to be most compelling as a novel of ideas, and Sterling's wild imagination brings them to dazzling life.
Included in the "Schismatrix Plus" edition are five Shaper/Mechanist stories Sterling published from 1982-1984 before writing the novel, which was originally published in 1985, and nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1986. I would recommend reading them first, rather than after.
*** *** ***
Bruce Sterling (b. 1954) is a writer of my generation -- I'm just a couple of years younger -- and I share much, though not all, of his attitude toward the world we have lived through and continue to live through. He has been one of my favorite authors ever since reading "Schismatrix."
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