Bruce Sterling’s The Caryatids: How much you’ll enjoy reading The Caryatids depends on how much you’d enjoy listening to Bruce Sterling talk to himself. Because that’s basically what The Caryatids is about. (This is not necessarily selling it short; Bruce’s monologues are endlessly fascinating, both in person and on the printed page.) It’s certainly an improvement over The Zenith Angle, in which, despite the usual array of cool Sterling stuff, it was obvious that his heart wasn’t into the technothriller form. He’s designed the mid-21st century post-disaster setting as a way to explore his core religious belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming, as well as his fascination with ubiquitous computing, Hollywood celebrity, the decay of the nation-state, post-national politics, etc. Unfortunately, the titular characters don’t drive the plot so much as have it acted upon them; they’re viewpoints rather than plot drivers. (This is not a new issue for Bruce: the protagonists of Islands in the Net and Holy Fire (to name but two) function in much the same manner.) If you haven’t already read Distraction and Holy Fire, I’d read those first, but there’s certainly enough here for the average Sterling fan to enjoy. I also find it interesting that the character that sounds and acts the most like Bruce ends up, at novel’s end, hooked up with the most obviously evil character…
Tags: Books, Bruce Sterling, Science Fiction, The Caryatids