The Caryatids
by Bruce Sterling
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bruce SterlingEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-24
ISBN: 0345460626
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of The Caryatids
Book Review: Don't listen to the naysayers, this book is awesome!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am baffled at why The Caryatids has received so many negative reviews on here. I am in so much puzzlement over how people could honestly write these things that I wouldn't be surprised if a rival publishing house has paid people to pan the books of its competition. I suspect, however, that Bookmarks Magazine summed up the reason when they said that "Books of big ideas often polarize reviewers, and Bruce Sterling's latest novel is no exception."
This is a book of ideas for people who like to think and be mentally stimulated. There are so many wondrous new technologies and concepts described in The Caryatids that people in our media saturated society who are already suffering from information overload may be turned off by it. If you're the type of person who wants simplicity from their reading, and thinks that the latest Star Trek or Warhammer 40,000K novel is an example of great science fiction, then The Caryatids probably isn't going to be your cup of tea.
I've also noticed that whenever a novel's protagonists don't have a traditional morality it tends to be polarizing. As the "most helpful" negative review states "there wasn't a single character sympathetic enough for me to care about, much less consider an interesting or worthy protagonist. None of the main characters seems to have any ethical code or system at all". I've seen several people cite amorality of protagonists as their main reason for disliking two other great works of fiction, Jack Vance's Cugel novels (arguably the best novels Vance ever wrote) and Hugh Cook's The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness decalogy. It seems absurd and childish to me, but apparently a lot of people can't get into a novel unless the main character thinks and acts in a way that conforms to their own values. Why should it matter that a character has an "ethical system" or is "sympathetic" or is "worthy of being cared about"? I don't see how this has anything to do with whether the book is good or not.
I've been a long time science fiction reader, I grew up reading Clarke, Gibson, Cherryh, Stephenson, Shirley, Asimov, Delany, Walter Jon Williams, and countless other authors. I do believe Sterling's The Caryatids is among the best science fiction novels I've ever read, and definitely the best I've read all year. It's so intellectually stimulating, relevant, and exciting, my only disappointment was that it wasn't longer. Don't be misled by the negative reviews on here, my advice is to pay more attention to the professional reviews in magazines like Publishers Weekly and Locus, which from what I've seen are more likely to recognize the worth of The Caryatids and give it the praise it deserves.
Summary of The Caryatids
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.
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