Books › Cristal Express
Cristal Express
First published 1991 · 320 pages
A dazzling, cerebral plunge into a future of ceaseless change, where humanity evolves through technology, conflict, and wit.
What it feels like
This collection of visionary science fiction offers a brisk, cerebral journey through futures defined by ceaseless change and technological metamorphosis. The mood is restless and awe-inspiring, plunging the reader into richly imagined universes where humanity is constantly evolving from genetically altered factions to cybernetically augmented beings. The prose is dazzling and inventive, balancing dialectical metaphysics with moments of inimitable wit and panache. As the stories shift from sweeping factional conflicts in space to near-future global networks and historical battles against the demons of progress, the emotional arc moves from grand, posthuman awe to sharp, intimate reflections on society. It is a perfect read for those who devour extrapolative cyberpunk and crave stories that wrestle with the radical, inevitable transformation of mankind.
- Mood
- restless
- awe-inspiring
- cerebral
- transformative
- Tone
- visionary
- witty
- philosophical
- analytical
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- technological metamorphosis · posthuman evolution · factional conflict · the march of progress
- The writing
- Richly imagined and dazzlingly inventive, blending dialectical metaphysics with inimitable wit and panache.
- The arc
- Moves from the awe of sweeping technological change to witty, intimate reflections on humanity's relentless drive toward the future.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave visionary cyberpunk and cerebral science fiction that wrestles with the radical evolution of humanity.
Content notes
- factional warfare
- body modification
About the book
Cyberpunk and Beyond...
The literature of science fiction is, to employ the customary buzz word, the literature of "extrapolation," but science-fiction writers vary enormously in their ability to "extrapolate," to envision a futuristic milieu of ceaseless change in which the metamorphosis of humanity becomes an inevitable concomitant. This relative rarity of genuine visionary inspiration makes all the more remarkable the appearance in 1982 of Bruce Sterling's "Swarm," the first of five stories set within the author's richly imagined Shaper/Mechanist universe. In this series the entire solar system has become the setting for unremitting conflict between the genetically altered Shapers and the cybernetically augmented Mechanists, with the factional struggles, space-age technologies, even a dialectical metaphysics, all brilliantly developed by Sterling. "Technology has unleashed tremendous forces that are ripping society apart," explains a character in "Swarm"; through the Shaper/Mechanist sequence one witnesses the evolution of mankind from human to posthuman to god.
The remaining stories in Crystal Express display the dazzling range of Bruce Sterling's talents: in the near-future "Green Days in Brunei," the moribund nation-state has been superseded by a global communications network controlled by multinational corporations, while "The Beautiful and the Sublime" is the author's smiles-of-a-summer-night divertissement, told with inimitable wit and panache. In "Flowers of Edo" an ex-samurai must do battle with the demons of progress, while "Dinner in Audoghast" presents a chilling prophecy out of medieval Africa. From hard-core cyberpunk technologies to global Greenpeace polemics to haunting historical fantasies, Bruce Sterling has emerged as both a serious and insightful futurist and a towering figure in American imaginative fiction.
Description from Open Library.
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