Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Arkham House Pub (1989), Hardcover
Description
Written by the author of Involution Ocean, The Artificial Kid, Islands in the Net and the editor of Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, this is a collection of short science fiction stories.
User reviews
LibraryThing member figre
Bruce Sterling is a very good writer and his works have had an important impact on science fiction. Unfortunately, the expectations created by such a concept probably hinder this collection which is…well…it’s just a collection of okay to decent to good stories. This isn’t to say that the
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collection is bad (although, as with almost any collection, there are a couple of clunkers). Rather that it just isn’t jump-off-the-page great. The best stories may be the fantasies at the end (the book is oddly grouped into stories from his Shaper/Mechanist series, science fiction, and fantasy stories) which include another twist on those mysterious shops that show up so often (“The Little Magic Shop”) and “Flowers of Edo” which visits Japan at the beginning of its electronic age to mesh science and demons. But even these stories barely hit a “4” on the “read it”scale. Overall, there is nothing particularly wrong with this collection. If you are fan of Sterling you will undoubtedly enjoy it. If you are a science fiction fan you will get some pleasure from it. But it is more like “filler” reading – something to read between your important reading (like a decent collection in a magazine) – than a must-have collection Show Less
LibraryThing member isabelx
The history of mankind in space had been a long epic of ambitions and rivalries. From the very first, space colonies had struggled for self-sufficiency and had soon broken their ties with the exhausted Earth. The independent life-support systems had given them the mentality of city-states. Strange
Space was too vast to police. Pioneer elites burst forth, defying anyone to stop their pursuit of aberrant technologies. Quite suddenly the march of science had become an insane, headlong scramble. New sciences and technologies had shattered whole societies in waves of future shock.
The shattered cultures coalesced into factions, so thoroughly alienated from one another that they were called humanity only for lack of a better term. The Shapers, for instance, had seized control of their own genetics, abandoning mankind in a burst of artificial evolution. Their rivals,the Mechanists, had replaced flesh with advanced prosthetics.
from "Sunken Gardens"
This book is split into three sections, It starts with five science fiction stories about two rival human factions, the Shapers and the Mechanists, and their relationships with the reptilian traders known as the Investors. The next section contained three stand-alone near-future science fiction stories and I preferred the three stand-alone in the next section, and the last section contained four fantasy stories with historical settings (the first of which might not even be fantasy depending whether the protagonist's vision is objectively real or just due to the hallucinogenic drugs he has taken. The Shaper/Mechanist stories were okay, but I preferred the stand-alone stories in the second section, especially "Green Days in Brunei" and I enjoyed the fantasy stories even more.
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ideologies had bloomed in the hothouse atmosphere of the o'neills, and breakaway groups were common. Space was too vast to police. Pioneer elites burst forth, defying anyone to stop their pursuit of aberrant technologies. Quite suddenly the march of science had become an insane, headlong scramble. New sciences and technologies had shattered whole societies in waves of future shock.
The shattered cultures coalesced into factions, so thoroughly alienated from one another that they were called humanity only for lack of a better term. The Shapers, for instance, had seized control of their own genetics, abandoning mankind in a burst of artificial evolution. Their rivals,the Mechanists, had replaced flesh with advanced prosthetics.
from "Sunken Gardens"
This book is split into three sections, It starts with five science fiction stories about two rival human factions, the Shapers and the Mechanists, and their relationships with the reptilian traders known as the Investors. The next section contained three stand-alone near-future science fiction stories and I preferred the three stand-alone in the next section, and the last section contained four fantasy stories with historical settings (the first of which might not even be fantasy depending whether the protagonist's vision is objectively real or just due to the hallucinogenic drugs he has taken. The Shaper/Mechanist stories were okay, but I preferred the stand-alone stories in the second section, especially "Green Days in Brunei" and I enjoyed the fantasy stories even more.
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LibraryThing member Brent_McDougal
I was a little disappointed with this book, not because it was bad but because i've come to expect more from bruce sterling.
This collection of shorts is divided into three sections: Shaper/Mechanic following two rival factions of humanity on their way to becoming post-human, Science Fiction near
This collection of shorts is divided into three sections: Shaper/Mechanic following two rival factions of humanity on their way to becoming post-human, Science Fiction near
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future sci-fi including the only story I really loved ( Green Days in Brunei), and Fantasy. Show Less
LibraryThing member nx74defiant
Swarm Intelligence is a two-edged sword.
Subjects
Awards
Gigamesh Award (1993)
Language
Original publication date
1989
Physical description
5.75 x 1.25 inches
ISBN
0870541587 / 9780870541582