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A review by taseenmuhtadi
Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling
3.0
The story is set in a sprawling solar system and spans liftimes. Its a very complex read and it rewards the sophisticated readers. Bruce Sterling is very ambitious in his depiction of the future. And that ambition is reflected in the characters of the protagonist and antagonist, Abelard Lindsay and Philip Khouri Constantine.
The books depiction of ideological conflict probably rises from the cold war era the book was written, but it resonates with today's more religiously motivated conflicts. It goes into vivid details of what can go wrong when things are taken to extremes. There are some brilliant SF ideas and concepts presented here, a huge number of them infact. You have to give Bruce Sterling credit for the imagination. Its a dificult thing to pull off and I can see why he is considered one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre. About the short stoies, they were nothing short of outstanding.
All that being said, the story does lack a certain cohesion. At times the story seems a bit disjointed. It goes about in fits, starts and jolts. Not exactly to my liking. I personally would have preferred a bit more world building as. But considering the ideas and concepts introduced in this novel, its easy to see why its regarded so highly.
The books depiction of ideological conflict probably rises from the cold war era the book was written, but it resonates with today's more religiously motivated conflicts. It goes into vivid details of what can go wrong when things are taken to extremes. There are some brilliant SF ideas and concepts presented here, a huge number of them infact. You have to give Bruce Sterling credit for the imagination. Its a dificult thing to pull off and I can see why he is considered one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre. About the short stoies, they were nothing short of outstanding.
All that being said, the story does lack a certain cohesion. At times the story seems a bit disjointed. It goes about in fits, starts and jolts. Not exactly to my liking. I personally would have preferred a bit more world building as. But considering the ideas and concepts introduced in this novel, its easy to see why its regarded so highly.