the Caryatids by Bruce Sterling

the Caryatids by Bruce Sterling

This is a novel of extremes. It is set in the near future around 2060. This is a forethought on climate change, pollution, and technology running out of control. The world as presented here is harsh, full of refugees, constant change, and failed states.

The novel intersects between three groups, two of them are transnational; the Acquis is a green collective that has advanced green technology and neural interfaces. The Acquis reminds me of an odd admixture of social enterprise and green capitalism. People like Amory Lovins, Paul Hawken, or groups like the Bioneers.

The second group is based out of California, the Dispensation, it is a conglomerate of Hollywood and high tech rolled into Reality 2.0. It might be what would happen if the people who read the magazines Fast Company, Inc., and Wired took over running things.

The final setting is China which has become a kind of super state that has gone from disaster to disaster. China is the ultimately endpoint of the mega state. It has set off hydrogen bombs in the Himalayas to reroute water from glaciers into China and built a simulated mars dome. It is a bureaucracy with total surveillance and total recycling of resources.

Thrown into this setting are the Caryatids, four clone sisters who are separated by disaster. The clones in this novel represent human archetypes; Radmila the superstar, Sonja the barefoot doctor, Vera the radical environmentalist, and Biserka the criminal and terrorist. Supporting them are their brother Djordje, the industrialist, and John Montgomery Montalban, a kind of supersalesman, an actor rolled into a businessman.

The book rages from shock to shock. It is clearly hard science fiction, drawing from the edges of what might be possible in the near future. The technology being described is very interesting. The writing is fabulous. There are many different viewpoints presented in the book, each sister gets to present their own viewpoint. There is not just one main character. This makes the novel unique.

Bruce Sterling has written many books, the two which I like best are The Difference Engine written with William Gibson and The Hacker Crackdown. This novel is drawing from a new style of near future science fiction, I can see the influence of Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross.

If you want to read something different, read this. This book was officially released February 24, 2009.

Daily Thoughts 2/27/2009

Portrait of Jonathan Swift, Author of Gulliver's Travels.

Daily Thoughts 2/27/2009

Today has started slowly. I wrote my monthly report of the activities which I have done. I also checked on the movies for the Sunday film series. I did a bit of tidying up and updated my current events display. It is quiet here this morning.

I have been designing some rough drafts for flyers for the upcoming programs. I have sent a few of them over to the community relations person. Mostly, today has been a day to tidy things up a little bit. Cut extra scrap paper squares for the desk, make sure the reference room is in order, and keep my phone numbers and calendar updated.

I think I am ready to go to the Whiteplains Supreme Court Law Library on Monday.

One of my colleagues is leaving for the City College of New York. He is going to be a college librarian working in interlibrary loan. We had a nice discussion about the process of getting published. He is very interested in family literacy. One of his ideas is adapting different learning styles to family literacy.

We have a new librarian starting on Monday. She has worked with law material before. Hopefully, this will help us a bit with answering law questions.

On the train home, I finished reading the Caryatids. It was an excellent read. Tomorrow, I will work on writing a short review.

Daily Thoughts 2/26/09

Rembrandt (1606-1669) "Rembrandt Drawing at a Window" Etching Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Daily Thoughts 2/26/2009

This is a really interesting article. http://kotaku.com/5160610/librarians-investigated-for-playing-rock-band . I am rather surprised that the librarians in Nebraska got in trouble for this. I think the Benny Hill theme song might have done it more than the Rock Band video game. A lot of libraries have video games as part of their collections these days. Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Dance Dance Revolution are some of the most popular video games to use in teenage programs. It gets teenagers to come into the library. We want them to come in and read and use books. Music video games are a lot better than most violent videogames. We have a video game machine, a Nintendo Wii which we use in some of our teenage programming. It looks like the librarians are testing the machinery to see if it works.

Right now, I have a day off. I am reading the Caryatids by Bruce Sterling. The writing is very dense for science fiction. It is saying a lot more than most science fiction novels which I read. The story is in a near future setting in a world torn apart by global warming and pollution. Much of what is being described is very relevant to some of the things which are happening today.

Today has been a quiet peaceful day. I had a chance to walk up to my library and drop off a few books, as well as do my exercises in the morning. I spent some time relaxing, reading on the computer. I read some more of David Drake's Starliner on the Baen free library. I am on chapter 3 of Starliner now. So right now, I am reading an ebook and a regular book at the same time.