Schismatrix Plus

Written by Bruce Sterling

Narrated by Pavi Proczko

The Nebula-nominated novel of “a brave new world of nearly constant future shock”—plus all the short fiction of the Shaper/Mechanist universe (The Washington Post).

Acclaimed science fiction luminary and a godfather of the genre’s remarkable offspring—cyberpunk—Bruce Sterling carries readers to a far-future universe where stunning achievements in human development have been tainted by a virulent outbreak of prejudice and hatred.

Many thousands of years in the future, the human race has split into two incompatible factions. The aristocratic Mechanists believe that humans can only achieve their greatest potential through technology and enhancing their bodies with powerful prosthetics. The rebel Shapers view these “improvements” as abominations, and their faith in genetic enhancements over mechanical ones has led to violent, even murderous, clashes between the two sects.

One man is caught in the middle. The child of Mechanists, Abelard Lindsay is a former Shaper diplomat who was betrayed and cast out of the fold. Scrupulously trained in the fine art of treachery and deceit, he travels freely between the warring camps during his never-ending exile, embracing piracy and revolution all along the way. But while saving his own skin is Lindsay’s main motivation, a greater destiny awaits him, one that could offer a bold new hope for a tragically sundered humankind.

A breathtaking flight of unparalleled imagination, Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix Plus also includes every subsequent excursion into the Mechanist and Shaper universe, complementing his acclaimed novel with the complete collection of mind-boggling Schismatrix short fiction. The result is is a total immersion into the Mechanist/Shaper universe from the Hugo, Campbell, and Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning author called “a writer of excellent fineness” by Harlan Ellison and “one of the very best” by Publishers Weekly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Dec 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781713562825

Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction writer, born in Brownsville, Texas on April 14, 1954. His first published fiction appeared in the late 1970s, but he came to real prominence in the early 1980s as one of several writers associated with the "cyberpunk" tendency, and as that movement's chief theoretician and pamphleteer. He also edited the anthology Mirrorshades (1986), which still stands as a definitive document of that period in SF. His novel Islands in the Net (1988) won the John W. Campbell Award for best SF novel of the year; he has also won two Hugo awards, for the stories "Bicycle Repairman" (1996) and "Taklamakan" (1998). His 1990 collaboration with William Gibson, The Difference Engine, was an important work of early steampunk/neo-Victoriana. In 2009, he published The Caryatids. In 1992 he published The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, heralding a second career as a journalist covering social, legal, and artistic matters in the digital world. The first issue of Wired magazine, in 1993, featured his face on its cover; today, their web site hosts his long-running blog, Beyond the Beyond.

Reviews for Schismatrix Plus

[velmeran · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A study of future humanity through space, this book follows the life of one man who I don't particularly care about one way or the other. While the ideas are good, the lack of sympathetic characters makes this a tough read.

[adamwolf_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a "grand tour" style novel, set in our Solar System after biopunks and cyborgs get kicked off Earth. It's ironic, funny, and packed full of ideas.

[rondoctor · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I hate to give up on a book once I've started it, but I almost gave up on this one. It is written as if the author was on hallucinogenic drugs. I did manage to slog through and finish the book, but I can't recommend it. Although the story gets a little more coherent as you move through the book, the prose is too filled with imaginative rambles to keep my interest. It is filled with descriptions of what people in "post-human" societies do to "enhance" their bodies. The plot is thin and not well developed. The characters are only mildly engaging. I found it very hard to relate to them. I would have given this one star instead of two, except that I reserve one star for books that I have totally rejected and stopped reading before completion.

[figre · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Science fiction is often called the fiction of ideas. In a way, this is insulting. Yes, in the past, it was the ideas that drove the stories - not the people, not the story, just a litany of ideas looking for a story. (In fact, when you look back at some of the very early famous stories – I’m thinking in particular of Stanley Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” – they still “wow”, but are primarily ideas and strange images hung together with a thin plot that exists simply to showcase the ideas.) Science fiction has come a very long way and it is a fiction that, at its best, is a successful amalgam of all the necessities of good story telling.I bring this up because Schismatrix, the novel that is at the heart of this collection of Bruce Sterling stories about the Shaper/Mechanist universe he developed, strikes me as idea after idea after idea desperately searching for something to make the reader care. And, as evidenced by this comment, I couldn’t seem to care. The novel, wrapped around the long (extremely long, absurdly long, gimmicky long) life of the primary antagonist Linsday, spans most of the history of this universe Sterling has created. While telling the epic story of a universe’s transformation, this has the effect of making the humans less real. And, that means there wasn’t really anyone to care about.The remaining stories are better, but that may just be in comparison with the novel itself because I know I have read these before and, while somewhat enjoyable, have never really been impressed.I keep trying to give Sterling a try, but I am consistently underwhelmed. I am sure there are others who fall in love with the universe and the detail. But it is not for me, and I would never give this to someone and say “This is how cyberpunk got started” as it might drive them away from ever trying more.

[joeteo1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sterling's Shapers-Mechanist stories are some of the most imaginative and somewhat disturbing images of the human future I have read. These stories explore the cultural, political and socio-economic issues of humanity as science allows ever more extensive modification of the body and mind through genetics and prosthetics. Highly intelligent and entertaining reading that I would recommend to any hard SF fan.

[michaeleconomy_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

weird but awesome

[szarka_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Schismatrix is a meditation on what it means to grow older, both individually and as a species. Unlike most of Sterling's later work, it's set in the distant future; and, stylistically, it reminds me of Roger Zelazny's work in a way that Sterling's other novels don't. But the themes of this book will be familiar to Sterling's fans and, if the writing isn't up to the standards of his best work, the ideas certainly are. Although I'd probably recommend Holy Fire as a better starting point for new readers, I'm impressed that someone so young could wrote such a good book about characters so old. The additional stories collected here aren't outstanding, and they're available elsewhere, but they gain from being read alongside the novel. [2008-08-07]