Schismatrix Plus

Author: Bruce Sterling

Almost as important as Greg Eganâ€™s work in describing posthumanity is Bruce Sterlingâ€™s sequence of Mechanist and Shaper stories in which posthumanity is divided between those who use mechanical means to augment the human body and those who use biology to shape the body. And that sequence reaches a glorious climax in this novel. The novel follows two one-time friends who become bitter enemies in the on-going battle between the Mechanist and Shaper factions to control the Solar System. In a novel filled with betrayals, assassinations, battles, alien encounters and much more, the central story concerns the constant reimagining of what it is to be human and still cope with the wildly varying conditions of life throughout the universe. Why itâ€™s on the list: To some extent, all four of the routes to posthumanity come into play in this novel, which is a vast, panoramic vision of what humanity may become in space.

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The political nuances that play such an important part in Schismatrix are also there in much of his other work. For instance, Distraction, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, is a subtle account of the different political factions at play in a balkanised future America. While Heavy Weather looks at how climate change leads to extreme storms, and the knock-on political and social effects of this change.

Alternative Choice
Mirrorshades, which Bruce Sterling edited, is the definitive cyberpunk collection, containing William Gibson's story "The Gernsback Continuum", along with work by key cyberpunk authors including Pat Cadigan, Paul Di Filippo, Lewis Shiner, James Patrick Kelly, Rudy Rucker and others.
The Shaper/Mechanist stories had a profound influence on many of the writers who have emerged in the new century. Perhaps the most significant of these is Accelerando by Charles Stross, which won the Locus Award. A series of linked stories take us from tomorrow's 24-hour online society to a space voyage as digitised information, to the dismantling of the planets to make a vast, solar powered computer.