A review by doku
Bone, Vol. 1: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith

5.0

I picked up this book based solely on Alastair Reynolds insane props:

"I owe an equally obvious debt to Bruce Sterling, whose 'Shaper/Mechanist' sequence blew my mind on several levels. Sterling's future history, even though it consists of only a single novel and a handful of stories, still feels utterly plausible to me twenty years after I first encountered it. Part of me wishes Sterling would write more 'Shaper/Mechanist' stories; another part of me admires him precisely for not doing so. Read Schismatrix if you haven't already done so: it will melt your face."

That is exactly what it did too, melt my face. I still remember when I finished it, I honestly sat there for 30 minutes utterly stunned by what I had just read. This isn't typical cyberpunk either, but it was written a year after Nueromancer and was also one of the books that has heavily influenced and defined what cyberpunk has become. Schismatrix Plus is everything ever written about the 'Shaper/Mechanist' Universe. It includes every short story as well as the full length novel Schismatrix, what's more is that it is all arranged in the way the Sterling intended it to be read. It is difficult, abstract, and intense beyond anything I could have imagined, but when you finish, you will utterly agree with Reynolds description.

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