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A review by sizrobe
Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling
2.0
This book was a huge disappointment. When you google "cyberpunk authors," Bruce Sterling is the second result, behind only William Gibson. He edited the seminal cyberpunk short story collection "Mirrorshades" way back in 1986 when it was just emerging. Imagine my disappointment when this book turned out to be mostly traditional boring far-future space scifi, complete with boring aliens. Finishing the book felt like a chore.
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely some cyberpunk and even biopunk facets to the story, and a lot of cool ideas in its worldbuilding. The main conflict is between two cartels: the Mechanists, who focus on mechanical augmentation, and the Shapers, who fiddle with biology. For some reason, there are no middle-ground splinters who do both. But these details are just the meat in a big bland space scifi sandwich. I like my scifi in the short term future and gritty as hell. This just wasn't my deal.
This book is split into 2 parts: Schismatrix, which is a novel, and the "Plus" material, which is a collection of short stories in the Schismatrix universe. I actually took a couple month breather between reading the main book and the Plus content, just because I was bored of reading it and it felt like a chore. Of the 5 short stories in the collection, I'd only recommend reading two: Swarm and Spider Rose. They're good stories, but sadly even less cyberpunk than the main book.
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely some cyberpunk and even biopunk facets to the story, and a lot of cool ideas in its worldbuilding. The main conflict is between two cartels: the Mechanists, who focus on mechanical augmentation, and the Shapers, who fiddle with biology. For some reason, there are no middle-ground splinters who do both. But these details are just the meat in a big bland space scifi sandwich. I like my scifi in the short term future and gritty as hell. This just wasn't my deal.
This book is split into 2 parts: Schismatrix, which is a novel, and the "Plus" material, which is a collection of short stories in the Schismatrix universe. I actually took a couple month breather between reading the main book and the Plus content, just because I was bored of reading it and it felt like a chore. Of the 5 short stories in the collection, I'd only recommend reading two: Swarm and Spider Rose. They're good stories, but sadly even less cyberpunk than the main book.