The Caryatids: A Novel

· Sold by Del Rey
4.4
5 reviews
Ebook
304
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

Alongside William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling stands at the forefront of a select group of writers whose pitch-perfect grasp of the cultural and scientific zeitgeist endows their works of speculative near-future fiction with uncanny verisimilitude. To read a novel by Sterling is to receive a dispatch from a time traveler. Now, with The Caryatids, Sterling has written a stunning testament of faith in the power of human intellect, creativity, and spirit to overcome any obstacle–even the obstacles we carry inside ourselves.

The world of 2060 is divided into three spheres of influence, each fighting with the others over the resources of fallen nations and an environment degraded almost to the point of no return. There is the Dispensation, centered in Los Angeles, where entertainment and capitalism have fused with the highest of high-tech. There is the Acquis, a Green-centered collective that uses invasive neurological technology to create a networked utopia. And there is China, the sole surviving nation-state, a dinosaur that has prospered only by pitilessly pruning its own population. Products of this monstrous world, the daughters of a monstrous mother, and–according to some–monsters themselves, are the Caryatids: the four surviving female clones of a mad Balkan genius and wanted war criminal now ensconced, safely beyond extradition, on an orbiting space station. Radmila is a Dispensation star determined to forget her past by building a glittering, impregnable future. Vera is an Acquis functionary dedicated to reclaiming their home, the Croatian island of Mljet, from catastrophic pollution. Sonja is a medical specialist in China renowned for selflessly risking herself to help others. And Biserka is a one-woman terrorist network. The four “sisters” are united only by their hatred for their “mother”–and for one another.

When evidence surfaces of a coming environmental cataclysm, the Dispensation sends its greatest statesman–or salesman–John Montgomery Montalban, husband of Radmila, and lover of Vera and Sonja, to gather the Caryatids together in an audacious plan to save the world.

Ratings and reviews

4.4
5 reviews
A Google user
November 25, 2010
In 2065, between an orbital sanctum and future space habitats, classical planet-based civilization is supported, as the title suggests, by the figuresque architectural columns of outlaw engineer clones of a Balkan war criminal, an Aryan Atlas-like brother and four sisters. They have risen to leadership of the major world domains. Amid the Acquis ln Mljet island, everyware, a senseweb of social software, monitors the brains and attentions of exoskeleton-equipped communal laborers and sensors. Earthquakes in LA arouse the Dispensation’s mil-entertainment complex global net’s’ autonomous emergency crews, while users view celebrities like paparazzi through homemade cams and plan the Next Web. Like a dragon, the Great Wall eyes Jiuquan, the city around China’s space center as military plot official immortality, while the political department extends to the far reaches. Fashioned as a triptych, the novel balances coincidences along three generations, three competing political parties, and the lives of the clones in three different parts. A Synchronist philosophy combines Extinction 6.0, the climate crisis, and an “event heap” of a supervolcano and unstable sun in a decaying universe. The reader follows the expressions, gestures and emotions of the participants while, like an epic symphonist scratching for survival, the author paints a future composed of Beethoven on the bulldozer; a Mongolian Mozart and a touch of thrash metal. Contrasts are juxtaposed including mines and graves, politically agnostic religion, transparency and vanishing. He refers obliquely to writings of Austen, Poe, Lovecraft, and Stevenson. Sound and color infuse the stories of the industrial Vera, theatrical Radmila, heroine of the state Red Sonja, Biserka’s incarnation of the goddess Artemis, and the sensitive executive George.
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About the author

Bruce Sterling is the author of ten novels, three of which were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. The Difference Engine, co-written with William Gibson, was a national bestseller. He has also published four short-story collections and four nonfiction books. He has written for many magazines, including Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Technology Review, and Wired, where he has been a contributing editor since its inception. He has won two Hugo Awards for his short fiction. Sterling lives in Austin, Texas.

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