185 books
—
465 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Schismatrix” as Want to Read:
Schismatrix
by
THE FUTURE OF MANKIND CAN TAKE ONE OF TWO DIRECTIONS...
The Mechanists are ancient aristocrats, their lives prosthetically extended with advanced technology. The Shapers are genetically altered revolutionaries, their skills the result of psychotechnic training and artificial conditioning.
Both factions are fighting to control the Schismatrix of humankind.
The Shapers are losi ...more
The Mechanists are ancient aristocrats, their lives prosthetically extended with advanced technology. The Shapers are genetically altered revolutionaries, their skills the result of psychotechnic training and artificial conditioning.
Both factions are fighting to control the Schismatrix of humankind.
The Shapers are losi ...more
Get A Copy
Mass Market Paperback, 288 pages
Published
June 1986
by Ace
(first published 1985)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Schismatrix,
please sign up.
Be the first to ask a question about Schismatrix
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30
Start your review of Schismatrix
At times, my mind would wander while reading Schismatrix. But not in the usual way wherein a thought much more interesting than what's on the page enters my head. Instead, I found myself often just musing about the ideas I'd just read a paragraph ago or even earlier in the book.
Schism is so packed with ideas and dwells so little on any one of them that it was sometimes a bit difficult to keep reading, wait, that idea was so interesting...the ramifications...we can't go on yet, I have to think ab ...more
Schism is so packed with ideas and dwells so little on any one of them that it was sometimes a bit difficult to keep reading, wait, that idea was so interesting...the ramifications...we can't go on yet, I have to think ab ...more
I had written Bruce Sterling off as a relic of the cyberpunk era, big mistake. The wow factor is pretty big on this. Mind mutating, WTF, idea per sentence science fiction with shades at time of Bester, Triptree jr. Delaney, Barrington J. Bailey(who blurbs it) William S. Burroughs, and Ballard. Dense, filled with absurd humor and grotesque surreal visions, as human future and form breaks and cascades into increasing odd shapes. I feel a little buzzed after finishing this. This and a couple of sho
...more
The only other book I've read that comes at all close to kinship with this fascinating space epic is Stross's 2005 Accelerando, which appears to have been influenced both indirectly (in form & style) and directly (posthumanism & lobters!) by Schismatrix, which predates Accelerando by two decades. In both cases there is at least one tongue-lolling, brain boiling, oh-wow SF concept worked into the story in every paragraph. Such a high ratio of idea-to-story weighs a little heavy on the reading at
...more
This book has been on my list after reading an excellent short story by Sterling dealing with this same universe. Well after finally finding a copy of this and reading it, I can say I wasn't missing much. Like a lot of SF, the characters seem like cardboard cutouts, and the plot is not good to say the least. Actually, this book is confusing as hell. Why are the characters doing what they are doing? What is motivating them? Sterling does present a colorful vision of the future where humans abando
...more
I read this due to a recommendation at the end of Alastair Reynolds' Galactic North. I thought it was pretty good, but definitely more intellectually stimulating than entertaining. He has some pretty fascinating ideas, although the overall plot itself is a little lackluster. Definitely worth reading, if only to see some ancestral ideas that evolved their way into Reynolds' Revelation Space universe.
...more
A very difficult book to get through. And honestly not a well written because the book's ideas are all over the place and near impossible to figure out what is going on. It took me almost the entire book to unravel the main premise was two cousins with different philosophies of life are out to get each other. There is plenty of political manipulation and deception. A couple of interesting ideas but far and few between.
...more
Eh. Hard science sci-fi with a psychedelic edge. Mechs versus shapers in a diplomatic battle for the something or other. Covers centuries, feels like it took months to slog through.
I'm reading it twenty-five years too late. ...more
I'm reading it twenty-five years too late. ...more
Bruce Sterling was one of the leaders of the Cyperpunk movement in science fiction and Schismatrix is the central novel of Sterling's shaper/mechanist universe. The Schismatrix is the whole extraterrestrial mankind after departure from exploited and polluted earth to orbital stations around the moon, in the asteroid belt, the Saturn rings or other places in the solar system. A schisma of mankind into shapers and mechanists took place with shapers focussing on genetical engineering and mechanists
...more
I picked up this book because I couldn't remember it from the first time I had read it, twenty years ago. I needed a bathtub book (one that I wouldn't mind if it fell in the water), and I wanted to decide if I should keep it on my shelf or pass it on. Within the first thirty pages I had dropped all my other books and was secretly heading off to my room to sneak in a few more pages.
I loved the way Sterling balanced almost overwhelming creativity with cool, calm, and precise prose. I loved the way ...more
I loved the way Sterling balanced almost overwhelming creativity with cool, calm, and precise prose. I loved the way ...more
Not my taste. The first section had a sort of post-apocalyptic feel - most people seem like scavengers, pirates, black market...a major form of currency corresponds to time one can spend with prostitutes... Not a good start for me. The end involving some mysterious / implausible entity didn't work for me. In between, the story was essentially futuristic intrigue. Didn't really engage me, but didn't put me off either. A theme of divisions between groups of future humans based on bio-enhancements,
...more
been meaning to read this for a really, really, REALLY long time... finally got around to it. i was expecting cyperpunk but it's not, it's far-future space opera; feels a lot like varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline. only a lot longer and not as much fun. the ideas are great (and they just keep coming), and the book's written in a kind of hallucinogenic countercultural michael moorcockian mode, but the story is just... really slow. like, "wait, is there even a story?" type slow. it was hard to finish.
...more
Sterling's highly detailed future Worlds and Races reminds me of Iain M. Banks at his best in the Culture novels. There's usually a large dose of social critique in Sterling's books and this is no exception with it's interspecies animosity and interaction having parallels with our own planet and it's current and historical cultural and racial conflicts. There's a significant degree of anthropomorphism with the aliens but hey! at least it's not bunny rabbits with human emotions. I'd recommend all
...more
This is a good science fiction novel, but it is very heavy and in the end I appreciated the short stories in the back better than the actual Schismatrix part.
this is the one that i asked bruce to sign. and old tattered paperback copy, but treasured. then his wife asked him to turn down the led zepplin because the kids were trying to sleep. or something.
Interesting ideas, but horrible writing. Plot and character development were poor and context was nonexistent. Couldn't finish it.
...more
Imaginative and interesting 80s sci-fi with no plot. Damn, this coulda been way more readable...
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I am not quite sure what to say about this book. It's not going to be for everyone. Many recommended it to me as a classic science fiction novel with cyberpunk flare (though not so much really) and a great future vision for author and seer Bruce Sterling. For the language of futurism alone, I loved it. Like this passage on pages 246-47: "In the hands of the Zen Serotonists, the Ring Council struggled for stability; as a result, it was falling behind. The cutting edge of genetics technology had b
...more
Probably closer to a 2.5. I came across this book because alastair reynolds rated it so highly at the end of his book Galactic North. I can definitely see how Schismatrix inspired him and his work. However, this book (Schismatrix) was a very frustrating read at times. There are clearly some big, interesting social ideas that were quite intriguing but poor characterization and the lack of the an overarching plot made it very difficult for me to want to keep going. In fact, I put this on my "did n
...more
One of the most visionary and engrossing books I’ve ever read. Can’t stop thinking about it months later.
If this book were written today, it would be a five volume series, fully fleshed out, a la The Expanse; which you can see the seeds of in this volume.
When you need a narrative to showcase your posthuman universe and you settle on the good old fashioned "horny picaresque"
...more
Was tempted to give this 5 stars solely for the line "I want your genetics. All over me."
...more
Very ambitious and an incredible read. Not generally much of a "space opera" guy, but this one was fascinating. Posthumanism is always tough to handle, but Sterling does a great job of exploring it from many different angles.
...more
Long and complicated, but some very different ideas. Definitely the kind of SF that makes you think in different ways and adds to your thoughts of what might eventually really come to pass with humanity in the future. A good read.
Sterling's novel follows a single mover-shaker through the turbulent politics and world of the far future human panoply spread across the solar system. Over the course of about 180 years, we see the way humankind expands, the whole breadth of people descended from Earth humans. It's a good novel, with complicated ideas and good plot. A few thoughts:
- This novel fits the arc of "leaps forward" SF novels like Forever War and Accelerando. The latter, particularly, owes a lot to Schismatrix. In fac ...more
- This novel fits the arc of "leaps forward" SF novels like Forever War and Accelerando. The latter, particularly, owes a lot to Schismatrix. In fac ...more
Schismatrix is a deeply engaging novel about the post-human future of humanity. The novel takes place over the course of approximately 170 years and follows the long career and myriad adventures of diplomat Abelard Lindsay. Schismatrix is filled with grand vistas and big ideas. It had me going to the dictionary on more than one occasion to look up terms such as "clade" and "Prigoginic" (which relates to Ilya Prigogine who, according to Wikipedia, was a Belgian chemist noted for his work on dissi
...more
This was the first science fiction book which blew my mind. I was about sixteen years old and reading it in a grungy motel on the beach in Samoa where my family stopped for a holiday in the process of moving to New Zealand. What I've always loved about Bruce Sterling is his characters, he writes character driven, grungy cyberpunk. It's full of meat and emotions and all the failures of humanity. There is no holy grail, only humanity driven and changed by the pursuit of technology.
I've lost count ...more
I've lost count ...more
Definitely one of the silliest books I've ever read. It's fragmented, makes several leaps of rationality and sometimes makes no sense, is terribly written in some parts, and yet manages to be a memorable book. The fact that I got through this at all is a feat - it took me ages to read ten pages. For whatever reason, I prefer it to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. By the end the prose becomes self-conscious, and I laughed - with the author (I think) - through the last thirty pages. (view spo
...more
The technological flourishes of cyberpunk, Mieville's fascination with the bond between the mechanical and the anatomical, and the epic scope of Asimov, all in less than 300 pages. Sterling writes with inspiration, in prose that you can run your fingers through and come back to enjoy again and again. This is a special work.
...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Readers also enjoyed
135 users
98 users
47 users
11 users
7 users
6 users
2 users
2 users
2 users
2 users
Bruce Sterling is an author, journalist, critic and a contributing editor of Wired magazine. Best known for his ten science fiction novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews, design criticism, opinion columns and introductions to books by authors ranging from Ernst Jünger to Jules Verne. His non-fiction works include The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (1992
...more
Related Articles
Science fiction is endless fun for those who appreciate thoughtful conjecture. As a genre, sci-fi encourages rule...
88 likes · 19 comments
1 trivia question
More quizzes & trivia...
“(He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute”
—
17 likes
More quotes…
