Schismatrix Plus

By: Bruce Sterling

Narrated by: Pavi Proczko

Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©1996 Bruce Sterling. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“A brave new world of nearly constant future shock.... Ambitious.... Fast-moving. Sterling’s real forte lies in the evocation of technological and human strangeness.” (The Washington Post)

“Spectacular.... A marvelous feat of invention.” (Booklist)

“Absorbingly original.... Highly imaginative.... An arresting slice of future history.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Lacking payoff

An interesting book filled with cool ideas, however the "story" is very lacking, without any real payoff for the time spent exploring said ideas

great book.

so many ideas. futuristic. wasn't too dark and has a little hope and light. the back and forth between the factions of humanity are interesting and thought provoking. it reminded me of beneath the wheel by Hesse; lots of descriptions shoehorned into a plot. I wish there were a few books after this one to explore this universe of Sterling s. well written, the campy is minimal and appropriate for hard scifi.

Mediocre characters, cool setting

setting was cool, but the characters were pretty under developed and the author was heavy on the "tell, don't show" school of writing

awesome story

I really like the complexity of the detail behind the shapers and all the gene editing they got up to

Disjointed

I made it to the end of chapter 3 before getting sick of saying “huh?”
Might be an epic to some people, but I couldn’t make myself stay interested and engaged

A drab story that never seems to grab you.

I wanted to like this, but it never happened. You keep waiting for a major event or something that means something and it never happened. The story rolls on like a five-year-old telling a story and then this happened and this happened and then this happened 

Sci-fi should be weird but...

This book may be for you but it is not for me. It isn't all bad. Some parts were very compelling story writing. Others were extremely lengthy conversations between barely introduced characters talking about anti aging treatments and soviet era politics set in space. There were some thought provoking scientific elements, and some characters were interesting, but also many elements that were discarded as soon as they were developed and still other elements that were inserted with no development but were pivotal to the story. Overall: a disjointed mashup that had potential. Some readers might find it more compelling than I did.