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Review: Schismatrix+ by Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling is, together with William Gibson, one of the godfathers of the Cyberpunk genre.

Oddly enough, while I love the aesthetic and the themes, I have not actually read many books in the genre, possibly because the ones I read (e.g. Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy) weren’t much to my liking (see my notes on The Peripheral).

So it’s not surprising that I had not read anything (or if I did, I forgot it) by Sterling, and I decided to give it a try.

Mild spoilers ahead.

The Shaper/Mechanist universe

Schismatrix+ is a book compose of a novel, Schismatrix, and a few short stories set in the same universe, a future where humankind has fractured (see, that’s where the schism in the title comes from) into sects, micro-countries, corporation-states etc, and the major split is between shapers, aka post-humans who believe in improving themselves through genetics, and mechanists, those who prefer cybernetics and a merge of homo sapiens and machine.

There’s more schisms, like in everything, and people drift between one and the other over time so the boundaries are less fluid than the universe would have you believe, but it’s an interesting setting (and not an uncommon one, tbh).

(Sidenote: the Italian translation of the title is “la matrice spezzata”, or “the broken matrix”, which is quite different from the original but it’s quite good)

The place where this happens is the solar system, cause post-humans have not yet achieved interstellar travel, but at some point alien races do appear, the first and chief of which is the investors, a race of space-faring economic-minded reptilians/insectoids.

I really like the concept of the investors, which are, in some sense, a more grounded version of Star Trek’s Ferengi. They are obsessed with wealth, not particularly bright nor threatening, but they are scary in the way that someone far more powerful than you can always be, even if they play by some legalistic and deal-oriented rules.

I also really enjoyed the fact that in this future world there’s a general societal collapse, but we still have patents. Truly a dystopia.

Is this cyberpunk?

I am not sure what cyberpunk is. I thought the core concepts are the fragmentation of society, a lot of computers, the death of traditional nations and rise of corporations. I didn’t expect aliens. By this point of view this is a lot less cyberpunk than, say, Neuromancer or Burning Chrome.

TVTropes says that “Schismatrix is to Neuromancer what Gormenghast is to The Lord of the Rings“, and I honestly have no idea what they mean.

I don’t know, drawing lines hardly ever work, let’s just say this is a book about post-humanism and human societies which got too complex for their own good.

Prigoginic what?

Ilya Prigogine was a Nobel prize winner chemist, who, among other things, studied complex systems.

Sterling heard of him and made up the “prigoginic levels of complexity”. This is akin to old science fiction where “the fourth dimension” was a parallel universe, i.e. it uses some of the vocabulary but fundamentally ignores the actual meaning.

Anyway, in this universe, systems will sometimes make a leap from a level of complexity to another. So, the primordial chaos of the pre-universe made a leap into space-time and matter; matter made a leap into primordial life; life beame intelligent and self-conscious, and here is where we, and the shaper/mechanist universe is.

But the beauty of this post-humanist universe is it’s constantly running, and on the verge of, the fifth prigoginic leap. Something which we cannot describe, since it’s beyond what we can even conceive of.

Here’s an interesting on prigogine and science fiction, written better than I ever could.

Fun trivia: Bruce Sterling in the intro says Prigogine read the stories and said they had nothing to do with what he said, and Sterling agrees.

The stories

Before I forget them completely, these are the specific details about each story.

Here are more spoilers.

Schismatrix

The original novel which got “expanded” in this book. It’s a sort of picaresque adventure following Abelard Lindsay through various adventures, changes of identities, meeting with friends and enemies and so on, across the whole solar system and a span of decades (centuries?). The novel reads lightly even when it touches difficult topics, and it was very enjoyable for me.

It ends in an interesting way, and I particularly enjoyed the irony built into imagining of the various quasi-states, such as the Mare Tranquilitatis People’s Circumlunar Zaibatsu or the Czarina-Kluster People’s Corporate Republic.

7/10

Swarm

Probably the most beautiful story, which has also been made into a very nice animation in Netflix’s Death Love & Robots anthology. It explores the common sci-fi theme of “social insects in space”, but it puts a beautiful spin on it, embracing the idea that the Swarm not only prospers without something analog to our intelligence, but explicitly chooses to avoid it: from its point intelligence is a trait that leads to species fizzling out in a few millennia.

10/10

Spider Rose

Another one used for Death Love & Robots, tho they changed it slightly. I’d argue the original version is better, but the animation is good too. Basically: lonely mechanist receives a pet.

6.5/10

Cicada Queen

We revisit (tho originally this was written before the main novel) the Cicada Kluster, where a mixed community has developed around an investor queen. A Shaper named Landau invents a new kind of jewel, and decides what to do with his new riches. We also get to know the lobsters, a kind of mechanist post-human which wraps themselves in an exoskeleton which allows them to live in the void of space, becoming more and more self absorbed and detached from the human race.

7/10, mostly because of the lobsters.

Sunken Gardens

The people of Terraform-Kluster have been terraforming Mars for a while, and there are regular tournaments/battle between factions of “vassal” tribes to show their skills.

7/10, tho I had to go through it twice to appreciate it

Twenty Evocations

Some experimental post-modernist writing; basically we see the life of a Shaper named Nikolai Leng through fragments of his life in the form of “evocations”: singulat titles like “ECLECTIC EPILECTIC” or “CHILD INVESTMENT” followed by a sentence or a couple paragraphs. Kind of like you could imagine seeing flashes of your life before dying. Surprisingly moving.

7/10.

Conclusion

I think this was well worth the read. I didn’t love everything about it, but I liked a lot of it. This was not the book I expected, but it’s good.

Vote: 7/10, the book is a classic for good reasons.

Review: Greatest Hits by Harlan Ellison

I did not know Harlan Ellison until some time ago. I had read some his work in anthologies or magazines, but I never really pay attention to names.

But then I noticed this collection of short stories, and I realized he’s the author of “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”, and thought I’d give it a chance.

Mostly, I’m convinced short stories are the format for speculative fiction.

Sure, I enjoyed the whole saga of Herbert’s Dune, or Asimov’s Foundation cycle. but I mostly like ideas, and a short story gives you that in a few pages instead of hundreds.

Anyway, this is an interesting collection; Ellison is an author of his time, and he perfectly embeds the New Wave style of science fiction (experimental writing, social critique, a penchant for shocking the reader). You may like this or not, but I think it’s worth reading it just to get yourself acquainted.

The Stories

I forgot to write this review soon after the book, so by this point I’ve already forgotten some of them… so these are some I do remember.

“Repent, Harlequin,” Said the Ticktockman (1966)

A classic tale of The Fool fighting against the establishment, the broken cog in the perfect machine, the rebel, the joker. I think this is written in an interesting way, but not particularly interesting plot-wise. Stephen King recycled the Ticktockman in his Dark Tower saga (book 3, “Wastelands”), and I think he did it mostly cause it’s just a cool name.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967)

One of the most famoys SF short stories, probably in the top 5 of most memorable ones (I’ll let you pick the others, but I have my choices, if you ask).

It’s harsh, and depressing, and everybody should read it.

The Deathbird

I think the author wanted to tell me something and I didn’t understand it. This one won a ton of awards, but for me it was “meh”.

Jeffty Is Five

Without too many spoilers, the story follows a kid who’s friend with Jeffty, and, well, Jeffty is always five years old. I cannot express how good this story is. It’s deeply moving and by far the better in the collection IMO, even tho the idea is so simple it is completely contained in the title. A masterpiece.

Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes

A great short “amazing stories” kind of tale, palate cleanser.

Mefisto in Onyx

This one also won some awards, also a fun “amazing stories” kind of tale. Follows a telepath who goes to visit a mean on death row, to actually confirm whether he’s guilty or not. Good story.

The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World

Look, the title is better than the story. It’s a deeply experimental composition with no linear narrative, and while I can agree it’s good literature, I’m not convinced it’s good SF. Wikipedia has the whole plot so you can go read it.

How Interesting: A Tiny Man

Another wonderful simple idea: a scientist creates a tiny man, which is initially considered a fun novelty, and then a target of hate. Very good story, very good writing.

Conclusion

I listened to this in audio form, and Harlan Ellison himself narrates most of it. Ellison was an odd person, and he reads the stories with so much emphasis as to almost be distracting. which in some ways compounds the effect of the stories, and in some others is just, well, annoying.

Still, he’s the author, so that’s how they should be read, perhaps.

I feel some of the stories have lost their power over time, and on the other side some may seem uncouth to modern readers, but I think anyone who claims to like SF should read them.

Also, again, the Jeffty story is wonderful and worth the price of the book by itself.

Vote: 7.5/10, Solid book, plenty of good stories, some iconic ones.

Micro Review: The Grocery

I read the Italian version of this book, the first in the Cherry Bomb book collection by Bao. The collection is curated by Zerocalcare who’s the most successful comic book writer in Italy in recent years, and there’s an interview with the authors on Bao’s youtube channel.

The original is French, so I’m happy to read a translated version (compared to e.g. english comics which I can read in the original), and it was published in multiple volumes, so this book is pretty massive, at 400+ pages. It feels like ~20€ well spent, and as ZC mentioned, you can also use the book to clobber someone if you ever need to.

The story starts as what one might feel as comic pastiche of The Wire, with drug dealers and gangs fighting for control in a generic Philadelphian neighborhood.

Still, this is done nicely, the cutesy art style and the contrast between sweet naïf characters and raw ultra-violent ones is a good idea.

Then, about half-way through the book, the story spins out in a completely unexpected direction and turns into a near future dystopia a-la Black Mirror.

And then it ends. I mean, it’s not like it doesn’t have a good ending, it does, it’s just sudden and somewhat unexpected.

I feel this is somewhat common in modern french comics (but please correct me), the stories seem put together perfectly for 60% of the story and then the authors.. give up? Still, I liked this book.

Vote: 7/10, I felt this was two different books, but I enjoyed both.

Micro Review: Gideon Falls

I’ve seen Gideon Falls mentioned often, but to be honest I kept confusing it with Gravity Falls.

The difference is: Gravity Falls is a rather entertaining cartoon with a bit of mystery that may entertain small kids, while Gideon Falls is a horror comic series that may traumatise them for life.

Read more for my opinion of it, but beware the mild spoilers.

cover for Gideon Falls Deluxe Edition (Book 1)

Gideon Falls is a comic written by Jeff Lemire and penciled by Andrea Sorrentino, centred around a group of people that enter in contact with a mysterious black barn.

It’s partly Lovecraft cosmic horror stuff, partly Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, and a sprinkle of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

The story touches on multiverses and time travel, which these days brings to mind the horrible way the Marvel Cinematic Universe does this, but it’s done with talent, so it does not suffer from the devaluation of any action done by the characters. On the contrary things have gravity and piece fall in place as they should. In spite of this, the plot is somewhat linear (but not without twists!).

The art is quite good. The style per-se is not my favourite, but the composition of the scenes and pages is beautiful, and you feel a lot of effort went into this.

I read this over a few days, and I probably didn’t pay enough attention to it, I think a re-read might reveal a lot of hidden gems and hints that I missed on the first read.

The series won 2 Eisner Awards (best new series and best colouring), when it came out a few years ago, make of that what you will.

I liked it enough that I’m going to try and read more of the Lemire/Sorrentino duo, since they seem to have been quite productive.

Vote: 7/10, I will read more by the same authors.

Micro Review: Dodger

Dodger is a non-Discworld novel of the late Sir Terry Pratchett, set in Victorian London, following the adventures of a “tosher”, AKA someone who looks for valuables in the sewers. A few “known faces” appear in the book such as Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, Sweeney Todd, Robert Peel, etc.

But, I gifted this book to my wife a few years back, and it took me a long, long time to actually read it. I loved Pratchett, I literally learned English on his books but getting through this was a bit of a slog.

There’s some funny bits, but it’s not nearly as brilliant as your average Discworld novel. It’s also very lengthy for no obvious reason, there are just a lot of things that happen which do not seem to add anything to the story.

I enjoyed the depiction of old London, learned a few things (did you ever imagine the Romans had a Goddess of sewers? Just the kind of trivia Terry would put in a book), but still not enough to cover for the rest.

Perhaps this was just the author trying something new. Perhaps it was his disease advancing. Perhaps it’s just me being angry at him for getting an incurable degenerative disease and dying. People should be more sensible than that.

The end result is I didn’t like this book., but it’s not bad, so consider giving it a try if you’re a Pratchett completionist, or perhaps a Dickens one.

Vote: 6/10, meh.

Micro Review: Fragile Things

I started listening to this audiobook around the time Vulture’s article about Neil Gaiman came out.

This book contains some of my favourite stories, not just by the author, but among all stories I’ve read and I remember, such as A Study in Emerald, which is probably my favorite fanfiction of both Sherlock Holmes and the Cthulhu mythos.

But the behaviour described in the article is so fowl I cannot in good honesty recommend the experience of listening to the author’s voice reading his own words after knowing of the accusations.

I’m no prude, I’m no judge, I’ve got my own opinions and I’ll bite my tongue and keep them to myself.

But I can say this felt like a punch in the gut. The folks over at Fumettologica (in Italian, use some translation service) have a very nice article on why this is so upsetting. We thought Gaiman was one of the good ones, this feels like betrayal (and I am in no way trying to say the fans’ feelings are comparable to the victims’).

Anyways, I’d suggest if you want to experience the stories, maybe get the Dark Horse collection via Humble Bundle, or pick the book at a library.

He’s rich enough and won’t suffer from this either way, but it may make your soul feel a bit better.

Micro Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes

I was reminded of this book while reading the short story The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury, by Neil Gaiman, which was reprinted in Trigger Warning.

I realized I’ve read very little of Ray Bradbury, the greatest sci-fi writer in history, and I thought I should fill this void a bit.

Given the crazy amount of stuff he wrote, I would have been troubled to choose. Likely, this one has the catchiest title.

In some ways, it was exactly the story I expected: Small Town America gets in touch with capital case Evil. A Carnival is involved, which seem to be a scary thing in US pop culture, like clowns. Or perhaps they started being scary with this story, it’s hard to tell.

The story has kids in it, so, to me, it felt like going home. How many stories I’ve enjoyed, of kids dealing with the supernatural in small american towns? From King’s “IT” to Netflix’s “Stranger Things”, I’ve visited this topos a hundred times.

And as usual, I enjoyed it. I didn’t find this book particularly original (could be a case of Once Original, Now Common), but it is certainly well written and entertaining, the characters are lively and the dialogs feel real. I also feel I missed some sub-text and meanings, so I welcome anyone who’d like to point me to some literary analysis of the work.

It did not leave me wanting for more tho, so I think it’ll be a while before I move on to other Bradbury works.

Vote: 6.5/10, good, just not as good as I expected.

Micro Review: un po’ di fumetti

(post in Italian)

Nel 2024 ho letto un bel po’ di fumetti, questa è una lista del penultimo carico

Nero 1-8 (Bonelli Audace)

Ottima l’idea: il medio oriente durante le crociate, ma in versione magica dove gli esseri umani si confrontano con forze soprannaturali, con buoni e cattivi sia tra i musulmani che tra i cristiani. Belli i disegni, storia ok. I personaggi mi sono sembrati tutti abbastanza stereotipati. Per qualche ragione piace un sacco a mio figlio.

Non sono un fan del formato (e del prezzo!) ma è una bella edizione.

Voto: 7/10, continuerò a comprarlo.

L’ignobile Shermann (Saldapress)

Un vecchio pirata che tutti odiano muore e lascia un’eredità a un gruppo di eredi sconclusionati. Per qualche ragione mi aspettavo Shermann come Barney nel libro eponimo (La versione d Barney). Ma no, effettivamente Shermann è un personaggio 100% negativo. E all’inizio sembra lo siano anche gli eredi, ma poi d’un tratto cambiano. Cambiamenti un po’ immotivati a mio avviso.

Disegni belli, ma non il mio stile.

Voto: 6/10, la copertina è meglio del libro.

Nathan Never: Il Giorno del Giudizio

Vent’anni fa compravo ogni uscita di Nathan Never, poi ho smesso. Ne ricompro qualcuna ogni tanto quando vado in Italia, ma mediamente le trovo deludenti.

Il giorno del giudizio è la ristampa di tre fumetti pubblicati una decina d’anni fa (vedi la recensione del primo numero su Spazio Bianco). È una buona storia con bei disegni, ma sempre più spesso mi capita di trovare i dialoghi dei fumetti italiani macchinosi e finti. Un po’ come succede con il doppiaggio nei film, dove attori bravissimi si trovano a parlare un doppiaggese che non esiste (“ehy amico stai attento, o quel fottuto bastardo ti farà fuori” e giù di lì).

Voto: 6.5/10, forse non sono più il pubblico di Nathan Never

Quando muori resta a me

Ennesimo capolavoro di Zerocalcare. Commovente a tratti, divertente per la maggior parte. Piaciuto anche a mia moglie che è cresciuta lontana dal GRA.

Forse un po’ troppi temi, ma è un libro molto intimo dato che tratta del rapporto dell’autore col padre e della sua famiglia, quindi chi sono io per criticarlo?

Voto: 8/10, Zerocalcare non delude quasi mai.

Docteur Mystère – L’integrale

Esiste (?) un personaggio creato da Paul d’Ivoi alla fine del 1800. Nel 1998 Alfredo Castelli e Lucio Filippucci hanno deciso di mischiarne la storia con Martin Mystère, e poi han finito per scrivere alcune storie dedicate solo a lui.

Quando ho scoperto che esisteva un’edizione integrale pubblicata dieci anni fa, ho deciso di leggerla, pur non essendo un lettore di MM. Non è stato facile procurarsela, ma alla fine ce l’ho fatta.

Il Docteur è geniale, atletico, onorabile e strapieno di sé. Una specie di Capitano Nemo + Batman + Poirot. Le storie so scritte in modo ironico e auto-caricaturale e hanno continui rimandi alla lettura di inizio secolo scorso, nonché a eventi e persone del periodo (il maresciallo Radetzky ke parla kome uno tetesko di Sturmtruppen è stato esilarante per i miei figli).

È un divertissement surreale e a tratti demenziale, con storie che non hanno granché senso, ma a me ha divertito molto, e questa specifica edizione è molto bella e ricca di contenuti extra.

Voto: 8/10, lo rileggerò.

Micro Review: Way Station

I don’t have proof, but I think the ’60s had the best sci-fi. Looking at the list of Hugo Award for best novel there’s not a book in the ’60s which isn’t absolutely great. But I have not read them all, so I decided to pick up the missing ones.

I think this one is free if you have an audible subscription, so if audiobooks are your thing give it a go.

Way Station by Clifford D. Simak is one I missed. The premise is quite original: Enoch Wallace is an American civil war veteran who ends up managing an interstellar traveling station in his house, apparently made immortal, and being more in touch with aliens who pass by than with his own world.

I won’t give spoilers, but the book seems to have a few ideas that may have deserved a better exposition, and some things seem just a bit forced. Enoch is a wonderful character, but there’s basically little else.

Still it’s a an original and optimistic piece from 80 years ago, and I enjoyed it.

Vote: 6.5/10, you can’t go wrong with the ’60s sci-fi

Micro Review: You Like It Darker

Following up on my summer trend of reading short stories, I got this recent collection of Stephen King’s short fiction.

I remember reading Night Shift when I was a kid (my dad loved King, and we had plenty of his books around) and it’s probably one of the things that stayed with me the most from that era.

I mostly forget everything I read, but I can still remember most of the stories in tt. I like to think it’s because they were really, really, good.¹

Quitters, Inc may be my favorite short story after Asimov’s The Last Question and Brown’s Sentry, it’s just so powerful.

Anyway, when I noticed there was a new short story collection I decided to give it a go. And well, Stephen delivers.

If you haven’t read a lot of King and you’re only familiar with It or Cujo, you may think he’s mostly an horror writer. But he’s not, in fact his best fiction (see Quitters, Inc) is speculative fiction at it’s best.

It’s our world but a little off . A little something that makes it uncomfortable, scary, or just makes you think harder. Just like in Night Shift, some stories have zero paranormal and are just unsettling. Unlike Night Shift, many (most?) stories seem to have a positive ending.

I guess Stephen got softer with age, just like me.

Vote: 7-/10, not all stories are great, and overall this is not as good as some of his older collections, but it’s still good.

. Rather than think my memory was better 20+ years ago. ↩︎