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Holy Fire
Mia Ziemann, 93, may have the body and mind of a thirty year old, but she’s stuck with the secure but tedious existence of a rich old woman.
In a world changed almost, but not quite beyond recognition by the unceasing march of technological progress, Mia isn’t unusual. But in Europe there is a movement away from the pragmatism of‘ most of those who have lived long and hard. In Prague, Mia confronts her boredom, her fear of entropy, and a whole new philosophy that challenges her very sense of self.
Cover illustration by Holly Warburton
In a world changed almost, but not quite beyond recognition by the unceasing march of technological progress, Mia isn’t unusual. But in Europe there is a movement away from the pragmatism of‘ most of those who have lived long and hard. In Prague, Mia confronts her boredom, her fear of entropy, and a whole new philosophy that challenges her very sense of self.
Cover illustration by Holly Warburton
296 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1996
113 people are currently reading
2337 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Sterling
356 books1,201 followersBruce Sterling is an author, journalist, critic and a contributing editor of Wired magazine. Best known for his ten science fiction novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews, design criticism, opinion columns and introductions to books by authors ranging from Ernst Jünger to Jules Verne. His non-fiction works include The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (1992), Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years (2003) and Shaping Things (2005).
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February 3, 2011
WARNING: Spoilers? maybe kinda/sorta; but the review might not mean much to you if you haven't read it anyway. Thus:
----
There's a scene--about halfway through the novel--when Paul says to Maya: "I want you to prove to me that you're not human yet still an artist." Right there? That's basically your thematic thesis.
It has been my observation that a lot of folks get introduced to Bruce Sterling by way of the Mirrorshades anthology (one of my top 5 favorite collections of all time) and so follow-up quickly with his other most-well-known werk, Schismatrix ; and while both are great, if you pay much attention to Bruce Sterling (i.e., read his running commentary over on Beyond the Beyond), you know that this was the book he was born to write. Virtualities and posthumanism and art and quirky social stratification and European leftism and art and revolutionary politics and atavism-in-a-technological-world and art and the economics of celebrity and sex and art...
Sterling presents us with a central conflict that's a classic one: the old vs. the new; the entrenched vs. the (would-be?) ascendant; preservation vs. creation. He toys with one of those fun little paradoxical science fiction utopias where everything is cheap and easy to make, where machinery is almost absurdly efficient, where science gives us nearly limitless lifespans, and where everyone is almost uniformly unhappy. They're unhappy because they're old and are essentially apathetic; or because they're young and politically powerless; or because they're decrepit and their frailties have caught up with them; or because they're young and fearful that their creative wells could (or already have) run dry.
Which is where the title comes into play. Sterling works the phrase "holy fire" in there quite a few times, each time changing the meaning just a little bit, but each time linking it rather distinctly with some character's intense feeling of creativity and expressiveness--that her actions are meaningful and lasting, that she is very much present in her existence and very much a part of the world's continuity. Characters feel "the holy fire" when they make something--doesn't matter if it's a mural or a party dress or a child.
Enter Paul's remark to Maya.
The scifi utopia that Sterling uses as his backdrop has also given us Mia/Maya--a nonagenarian (centenarian?) woman who undergoes a radical experimental medical life-extension treatment that effectively re-makes her at the molecular level into a lithe, apparent-twentysomething. Mia (pre-treatment) is steady and regimented and predictable and safe and it would seem completely disconnected from everything--aloof, if you will. She reluctantly visits an old lover on his deathbed; she is divorced from her husband; she is estranged from her daughter; she has no lovers, and hasn't had one in 30 (40?) years; even her running narrative seems to comment on places she never visited in her lifetime--sojourns she never took, business trips conducted via telepresence instead of physically. Mia has retreated into a world that she can control because she is "good" and because this will help keep her on a path to... what? Immortality in the Woody Allen sense? Certainly she must believe so; and thus her vehicle to conquer mortality is this treatment. But after the treatment: we have Maya--who subsumes Mia, and is in some ways still Mia (some memories, some skills...)--but Maya is very much connected, or else wants very much to be connected. Maya flees her medical custodians to immerse herself in continental Europe (Stuttgart! Praha! Milano!); she seeks out sexual partners; she seeks out mental and spiritual and apparent-physical conspecifics; she seeks out new ways to express herself (clothing! modeling! photography!). Perhaps because she is 90-now-20, perhaps because she is "reborn" into some new and fearlessly mortal ingénue--but Maya seems unconcerned with corporeal mortality. Instead, she seeks--immortality from? celebrity through? catharsis by?--art. She is after that "holy fire", but (somewhat orthogonally to Emil's artistic pursuits) she does not yet feel it, just the yearning for it.
"I want you to prove to me that you're not human yet still an artist."
Is Paul's conundrum a legitimate, phenomenological challenge to Maya? Or is it some tongue-in-cheek taunt predicated on a metaphysical paradox? Would Paul have posed the same question to Plato or Aquinas? What would either of those dogs have said? And would Maya have chosen differently if she had been around for that conversation?
----
POST SCRIPTS AND OTHER NOTES:
(1) Holy Fire was published in 1996, about the same time as William Gibson's Idoru (another favorite of mine) and not terribly long after Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992). Though the three are ultimately wrestling with some different themes and questions, there are also quite a few elements that draw them together: conflicts between the old and new generations (but what great literature doesn't have that?); ubiquitous virtualities that almost feel like invasive species; celebrity-as-currency. It would be interesting to take these three novels together, perhaps teach a class on them, or bang together a nice long dissertation on what I can only think to call "brinksmanship by futureshock".
(2) As with any science fiction, it is both blessed and cursed by its time. If Holy Fire was written in 2006 instead of 1996, all that "telomeric extension" stuff would have been (or at least included) something about stem cells as well. But the text seems pretty damn aware of this sort of damning specificity and deals reasonably well with it.
(3) I wish Sterling had not played it so safely. Killing off billions of people with plagues in your back-story takes some of the extravagant self-indulgent flair out of "posthumanism" and life extension; where's the ethical damnation there? And there's an unfired Chekov's gun with the Mia/Maya schizoidia; I expected more from that than the way it was invoked there for the climax. Also: there was a real lost opportunity with that translation necklace; 20 more pages and that thing could have gotten treacherous.
----
There's a scene--about halfway through the novel--when Paul says to Maya: "I want you to prove to me that you're not human yet still an artist." Right there? That's basically your thematic thesis.
It has been my observation that a lot of folks get introduced to Bruce Sterling by way of the Mirrorshades anthology (one of my top 5 favorite collections of all time) and so follow-up quickly with his other most-well-known werk, Schismatrix ; and while both are great, if you pay much attention to Bruce Sterling (i.e., read his running commentary over on Beyond the Beyond), you know that this was the book he was born to write. Virtualities and posthumanism and art and quirky social stratification and European leftism and art and revolutionary politics and atavism-in-a-technological-world and art and the economics of celebrity and sex and art...
Sterling presents us with a central conflict that's a classic one: the old vs. the new; the entrenched vs. the (would-be?) ascendant; preservation vs. creation. He toys with one of those fun little paradoxical science fiction utopias where everything is cheap and easy to make, where machinery is almost absurdly efficient, where science gives us nearly limitless lifespans, and where everyone is almost uniformly unhappy. They're unhappy because they're old and are essentially apathetic; or because they're young and politically powerless; or because they're decrepit and their frailties have caught up with them; or because they're young and fearful that their creative wells could (or already have) run dry.
Which is where the title comes into play. Sterling works the phrase "holy fire" in there quite a few times, each time changing the meaning just a little bit, but each time linking it rather distinctly with some character's intense feeling of creativity and expressiveness--that her actions are meaningful and lasting, that she is very much present in her existence and very much a part of the world's continuity. Characters feel "the holy fire" when they make something--doesn't matter if it's a mural or a party dress or a child.
Enter Paul's remark to Maya.
The scifi utopia that Sterling uses as his backdrop has also given us Mia/Maya--a nonagenarian (centenarian?) woman who undergoes a radical experimental medical life-extension treatment that effectively re-makes her at the molecular level into a lithe, apparent-twentysomething. Mia (pre-treatment) is steady and regimented and predictable and safe and it would seem completely disconnected from everything--aloof, if you will. She reluctantly visits an old lover on his deathbed; she is divorced from her husband; she is estranged from her daughter; she has no lovers, and hasn't had one in 30 (40?) years; even her running narrative seems to comment on places she never visited in her lifetime--sojourns she never took, business trips conducted via telepresence instead of physically. Mia has retreated into a world that she can control because she is "good" and because this will help keep her on a path to... what? Immortality in the Woody Allen sense? Certainly she must believe so; and thus her vehicle to conquer mortality is this treatment. But after the treatment: we have Maya--who subsumes Mia, and is in some ways still Mia (some memories, some skills...)--but Maya is very much connected, or else wants very much to be connected. Maya flees her medical custodians to immerse herself in continental Europe (Stuttgart! Praha! Milano!); she seeks out sexual partners; she seeks out mental and spiritual and apparent-physical conspecifics; she seeks out new ways to express herself (clothing! modeling! photography!). Perhaps because she is 90-now-20, perhaps because she is "reborn" into some new and fearlessly mortal ingénue--but Maya seems unconcerned with corporeal mortality. Instead, she seeks--immortality from? celebrity through? catharsis by?--art. She is after that "holy fire", but (somewhat orthogonally to Emil's artistic pursuits) she does not yet feel it, just the yearning for it.
"I want you to prove to me that you're not human yet still an artist."
Is Paul's conundrum a legitimate, phenomenological challenge to Maya? Or is it some tongue-in-cheek taunt predicated on a metaphysical paradox? Would Paul have posed the same question to Plato or Aquinas? What would either of those dogs have said? And would Maya have chosen differently if she had been around for that conversation?
----
POST SCRIPTS AND OTHER NOTES:
(1) Holy Fire was published in 1996, about the same time as William Gibson's Idoru (another favorite of mine) and not terribly long after Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992). Though the three are ultimately wrestling with some different themes and questions, there are also quite a few elements that draw them together: conflicts between the old and new generations (but what great literature doesn't have that?); ubiquitous virtualities that almost feel like invasive species; celebrity-as-currency. It would be interesting to take these three novels together, perhaps teach a class on them, or bang together a nice long dissertation on what I can only think to call "brinksmanship by futureshock".
(2) As with any science fiction, it is both blessed and cursed by its time. If Holy Fire was written in 2006 instead of 1996, all that "telomeric extension" stuff would have been (or at least included) something about stem cells as well. But the text seems pretty damn aware of this sort of damning specificity and deals reasonably well with it.
(3) I wish Sterling had not played it so safely. Killing off billions of people with plagues in your back-story takes some of the extravagant self-indulgent flair out of "posthumanism" and life extension; where's the ethical damnation there? And there's an unfired Chekov's gun with the Mia/Maya schizoidia; I expected more from that than the way it was invoked there for the climax. Also: there was a real lost opportunity with that translation necklace; 20 more pages and that thing could have gotten treacherous.
January 5, 2013
I very rarely put down a book before I finish it, but when I do it’s usually a book that I’ve been reading for more than a month at a rate of just a few pages a day only at times when I have a choice between reading the book or doing absolutely nothing. I put down Holy Fire (about five sevenths of the way through). It’s possible that I didn’t read far enough to see what makes this book something that deserves what appears to be almost universal approval, but I’m going to tell you what I thought of it anyway.
I’ve read a few reviews of this book (which I don’t tend to do unless I really love or really hate a book) and most were glowing but a few were more grounded. I agreed with most of those: that Sterling’s characters don’t face any consequences for their actions; that his description of the oddity of the future world he envisions appears to be what he really cares about but it ends up being just distracting; that in the socialist society he portrays (where the characters don’t appear to be reasonably or philosophically opposed to the status quo) there is little to motivate their behavior, etc. But my problem with it boils down to two things. First, I just don’t buy it. Second, there’s just no there there (by which I mean, it doesn’t teach me anything about the human condition).
From essentially page one I just didn’t buy the premise. I thought the beginning was interesting (if a little slow) but I just didn’t buy this idea of a truly “gerontocratic” society where all power is localized among the very old apparently *because* they are very old and not for some other reason. That’s the main point and I’ll get to it in a second, but on a more micro level, I didn’t buy a lot of Sterling’s vision of the future. Most of the time he spent describing the strange oddities present in his image of one-century-from-now I spent rolling my eyes.
Exempli gratia: Common and pervasive cybernetically enhanced animals. And the point of that would be…?
I mean, I could get behind some frickin’ sharks with frickin’ laserbeams on their heads, or even a single prototypical sentient dog with a talk show, but crab waiters? Why on earth would you surgically improve a crab in order to make it able to carry drinks to a table when there are so many idiot teens and tweens who can do it just fine with their natural abilities? I realize this may seem like a silly example, but it’s actually indicative of a lot of what I thought was wrong with the book. You get the feeling that Sterling didn’t say: Okay, this is what we can do with cybernetics now… this is how I think our abilities will improve in the future… therefore, this is what we’ll come up with. You get the feeling that he said “Crab waiters. Awesome.” …and then didn’t worry too much about how we get there or *why* science would invest the Herculean amount of time and treasure it would cost to make that sort of leap.
And, by the way, the “crab waiters… awesome” approach is fine… if you’re the Flintstones. If what you’re going for is a joke, then by all means do dinosaur pets and dinosaur cars and dinosaur steam whistles and earth-movers and cranes and bridges. But if what you’re going for is a serious look at a plausible, verisimilar future, what I want to see is a plausible, verisimilar logical progression from what we can do now to what we may be able to do in the future that takes into account what we’re likely to invest in.
I can understand a single sentient dog *as a step toward brain implants that would make humans smarter* or even as an oddity that is odd in the novel world. Remember Blade Runner? That weird little geneticist that made his weird little genetic toys? That wasn’t presented as an economically viable industry. Genetics was, sure. And it produced the abilities the toy guy used to make his toys… but he wasn’t the head of a genetic toy company that specialized in weird little midget guys and whatever because the demand for that was such that it would support that kind of industry. He was a weird little guy making his weird little toys that even future people thought were kind of weird.
I can understand sharks with laserbeams on theirs on heads too. Military applications? That’s all you gotta say about motivation. If we could make semi-sentient intelligent sharks with laserbeams on their heads that could attack ships, either to interrupt trade or sink war ships, I’m sure we’d do it and I’d never question a plot device like that, or anything that seems like something that would be worth our time because it accomplishes a goal that I can understand future people would be interested in. Crab waiters doesn’t make the cut.
By the same token, Sterling sorta misses the entire point of the internet. And I know the internet was nascent when this was written and it was sort of anyone’s guess what it would turn into and this is where Sterling suffers for my having failed to read this fifteen years ago, but wow did he get it wrong. His vision seems to be a network of computers that somehow morphs into a single consciousness called ‘the net’. You can ask it questions. It gives great advice. It’s awesome.
It’s also highly improbable. Not because we couldn’t come up with AI software and hardware. Maybe that’s possible and maybe it’s not, but that’s not what makes this seem wrong. It’s the fact that what makes the internet the internet is the confluence of millions of different and disparate intelligences sharing information. It’s improbable in the extreme that we’re going to settle on a single, infinitely accessible super computer that stores all human knowledge and dispenses it in this socialist, egalitarian way. What would be the motive? Where’s the profit in that? Is there a single company that got so powerful that it took over *the entire internet* and now it provides all access to information? Is it the government that does that? Is there an internet resistance that’s trying to restore freedom to the net and free expression and access to information? Absolutely not.
In fact, freedom seems to be in infinite supply in Sterling’s future. Everything is free. Food. Health care. Travel. Clothes (except for the one Jacket we see getting bought) ear translators (except for the one that threatens to damage your eardrums if you don’t send a non-existent, bankrupt company 700 marks). So… what’s going on with the economy? This is a socialist world where all the old people are extremely wealthy but power isn’t about wealth and young people have ‘fake’ money and old people have ‘real’ money but you can only use ‘real’ money invest in medical companies but medical companies don’t pick who gets life extension based on who has the most money…? What?
And what’s going on with politics and government? Theft is a ‘lifestyle’ choice but don’t worry there are no victims so it’s cool to take what you want because you could pretty much subsist by eating the walls and shitting in the corner and you can get by just drifting around on a wanderjahr from place to place with no money and no ID and no connections cause the artists and the gypsy capitalists will take you in out of the kindness of their hearts but beware the socialist aristocracy that wants to hunt you down as a dangerous criminal because you left town without telling them where you going… WHAT? Seriously, WHAT?!
Writing 101: Step one is figuring out what the fuck is going on in your own world. Step two is describing it for the reader in a way that makes sense.
I just don’t buy it. If Mia has access to a treatment that makes the old young, why doesn’t everyone have access to that? Because she’s part of the gerontocratic elite and she invested in the company, right? But we’re told that it isn’t about money. The very wealthy can’t just buy life extension. That’s parceled out according to how good a citizen you’ve been. And who makes that decision? And more importantly, if Mia has access to this treatment because she’s been a good citizen, explain to me why she’s a prisoner after she has it done. Explain to me why she’s a dangerous criminal because she takes her monitors off and skips town. Usually in writing you want to do as little explanation as possible. But you can only fail to explain things if they make SENSE.
If Sterling had created a world that seemed like a natural progression from the world we know it would have been awesome. If every time he described something a part of the reader’s brain said, “Of course. That’s exactly how it would happen,” then no explanation is necessary. But if you’re telling me that power is the hands of old people, when I know from my experiences with the world that most old people end up on a fixed income, decidedly not powerful, relying on family and government support after their ability to be productive has waned, then you’re going to have to explain why. If you’re telling me that there’s a world-wide government that controls essentially everything, unproblematically and uncontroversially, then you’re going to have to explain why there’s still an army. If you’re telling me that there’s this thing that everybody wants (life extension) and it’s not available to the super rich unless they’re a certain type of citizen, then you’re going to have to explain why money still exists (if it doesn’t buy what people want) or who makes the decisions and where that guy or government or organization gets its/his power and why someone else who wants what he can’t have hasn’t come to take it by force. That horrible Justin Timberlake movie from last year "In Time" did a much better job of addressing this question and presented a much more believable vision of a life-extension future. Much.
If your vision is counterintuitive, then you need to explain the logic behind it and you need to give me more than just “There were some plagues and a bunch of people died” as if that just explains everything because there’s no way to predict what would happen as the result of an apocalypse. Sorry… there are some pretty good books out there that examine, painstakingly, what the likely results of all manner of different kinds of apocalypses are and none of them comes up with an outmoded, enervated gerontocratic elite. If that’s your theory, you need to tell me why.
But really this wasn’t the problem that made me want to throw my iPad out the window over and over again. Mostly I just thought the whole thing was pretty shallow and pointless.
Our main character, Mia/Maya spends her whole life as a good girl who has no passions and no exciting adventures and then she gets a second chance. I totally get that as a premise. Sounds like an awesome start. Let’s see what you’d do if you had a chance to do it all over again. If you knew then what you know now… Awesome.
So what does Maya do? She goes to Germany and hangs out in a train station. Then she hooks up with a thief. Because she wants to experience passion? Well, she doesn’t really feel anything for him other than a general thumbs-up for sex, but I can get behind that. This isn’t a love story. Cool. Bring on the other types of passion. Where does she go next? She hangs out in a tent store with a bunch of gypsies and models clothes.
Uhmm… Okay. So her passion is being pretty? Not all that deep, but maybe there’s something here. Maybe what’s coming in an indictment of the amount of value we put on appearance. Maybe there’s something in here about how she was pretty when she was young and then she grew old and realized how beauty is only skin deep but now being pretty again we see it from another perspective and realize that there is something important about physical beauty to the human experience… Is that where you going? Beauty is truth and truth beauty? That sort of thing? No. That poem is quoted, but to what end? None that I could see.
She leaves the store without looking back so she can go hook up with artists in Stuttgart. No examination of any of those themes (or any others that I could tell). But here we go. Art is life. Awesome. Here’s where the passion comes in, right? Wrong again. She hangs out with a guy who has no memory for a while and accomplishes nothing (except sex = nifty again). Then she leaves him without a word and hangs out in a city where the walls are made of moss and accomplishes nothing. Then she comes back and sees the amnesiac again and doesn’t even stay for the afternoon.
Has she created anything? Has she studied art? Has she even improved his art (his pottery) or anyone else’s? Not that I can see. But wait, there’s a famous photographer in town. So now, two thirds of the way through the book she goes to see him. He’s not taking students but he lets her in because she remembers his most famous works from sixty years ago? He takes her on as a photography student because why exactly?
But fine, she’s finally found her passion, right? She’s going to take beautiful pictures. And over the course of the next twenty pages we see her following him around to a fashion show (that he is apparently required by law to attend, it’s so important and that conveniently is going on on the very day Maya arrives in his life) and immediately what people want from her is to make her a walking mannequin again. What she wants out of life is to wear make-up and nice clothes.
I’m done.
Maybe the book is building to something interesting. Maybe there’s a revolution coming. Maybe there’s something to this memory palace stuff that seems like non-sense at this point, but I’LL NEVER FIND OUT because I can’t stand wading through the superficial, unrealistic, illogical, disjointed and wandering crap that makes up the path to that point.
I am so done.
I’ve read a few reviews of this book (which I don’t tend to do unless I really love or really hate a book) and most were glowing but a few were more grounded. I agreed with most of those: that Sterling’s characters don’t face any consequences for their actions; that his description of the oddity of the future world he envisions appears to be what he really cares about but it ends up being just distracting; that in the socialist society he portrays (where the characters don’t appear to be reasonably or philosophically opposed to the status quo) there is little to motivate their behavior, etc. But my problem with it boils down to two things. First, I just don’t buy it. Second, there’s just no there there (by which I mean, it doesn’t teach me anything about the human condition).
From essentially page one I just didn’t buy the premise. I thought the beginning was interesting (if a little slow) but I just didn’t buy this idea of a truly “gerontocratic” society where all power is localized among the very old apparently *because* they are very old and not for some other reason. That’s the main point and I’ll get to it in a second, but on a more micro level, I didn’t buy a lot of Sterling’s vision of the future. Most of the time he spent describing the strange oddities present in his image of one-century-from-now I spent rolling my eyes.
Exempli gratia: Common and pervasive cybernetically enhanced animals. And the point of that would be…?
I mean, I could get behind some frickin’ sharks with frickin’ laserbeams on their heads, or even a single prototypical sentient dog with a talk show, but crab waiters? Why on earth would you surgically improve a crab in order to make it able to carry drinks to a table when there are so many idiot teens and tweens who can do it just fine with their natural abilities? I realize this may seem like a silly example, but it’s actually indicative of a lot of what I thought was wrong with the book. You get the feeling that Sterling didn’t say: Okay, this is what we can do with cybernetics now… this is how I think our abilities will improve in the future… therefore, this is what we’ll come up with. You get the feeling that he said “Crab waiters. Awesome.” …and then didn’t worry too much about how we get there or *why* science would invest the Herculean amount of time and treasure it would cost to make that sort of leap.
And, by the way, the “crab waiters… awesome” approach is fine… if you’re the Flintstones. If what you’re going for is a joke, then by all means do dinosaur pets and dinosaur cars and dinosaur steam whistles and earth-movers and cranes and bridges. But if what you’re going for is a serious look at a plausible, verisimilar future, what I want to see is a plausible, verisimilar logical progression from what we can do now to what we may be able to do in the future that takes into account what we’re likely to invest in.
I can understand a single sentient dog *as a step toward brain implants that would make humans smarter* or even as an oddity that is odd in the novel world. Remember Blade Runner? That weird little geneticist that made his weird little genetic toys? That wasn’t presented as an economically viable industry. Genetics was, sure. And it produced the abilities the toy guy used to make his toys… but he wasn’t the head of a genetic toy company that specialized in weird little midget guys and whatever because the demand for that was such that it would support that kind of industry. He was a weird little guy making his weird little toys that even future people thought were kind of weird.
I can understand sharks with laserbeams on theirs on heads too. Military applications? That’s all you gotta say about motivation. If we could make semi-sentient intelligent sharks with laserbeams on their heads that could attack ships, either to interrupt trade or sink war ships, I’m sure we’d do it and I’d never question a plot device like that, or anything that seems like something that would be worth our time because it accomplishes a goal that I can understand future people would be interested in. Crab waiters doesn’t make the cut.
By the same token, Sterling sorta misses the entire point of the internet. And I know the internet was nascent when this was written and it was sort of anyone’s guess what it would turn into and this is where Sterling suffers for my having failed to read this fifteen years ago, but wow did he get it wrong. His vision seems to be a network of computers that somehow morphs into a single consciousness called ‘the net’. You can ask it questions. It gives great advice. It’s awesome.
It’s also highly improbable. Not because we couldn’t come up with AI software and hardware. Maybe that’s possible and maybe it’s not, but that’s not what makes this seem wrong. It’s the fact that what makes the internet the internet is the confluence of millions of different and disparate intelligences sharing information. It’s improbable in the extreme that we’re going to settle on a single, infinitely accessible super computer that stores all human knowledge and dispenses it in this socialist, egalitarian way. What would be the motive? Where’s the profit in that? Is there a single company that got so powerful that it took over *the entire internet* and now it provides all access to information? Is it the government that does that? Is there an internet resistance that’s trying to restore freedom to the net and free expression and access to information? Absolutely not.
In fact, freedom seems to be in infinite supply in Sterling’s future. Everything is free. Food. Health care. Travel. Clothes (except for the one Jacket we see getting bought) ear translators (except for the one that threatens to damage your eardrums if you don’t send a non-existent, bankrupt company 700 marks). So… what’s going on with the economy? This is a socialist world where all the old people are extremely wealthy but power isn’t about wealth and young people have ‘fake’ money and old people have ‘real’ money but you can only use ‘real’ money invest in medical companies but medical companies don’t pick who gets life extension based on who has the most money…? What?
And what’s going on with politics and government? Theft is a ‘lifestyle’ choice but don’t worry there are no victims so it’s cool to take what you want because you could pretty much subsist by eating the walls and shitting in the corner and you can get by just drifting around on a wanderjahr from place to place with no money and no ID and no connections cause the artists and the gypsy capitalists will take you in out of the kindness of their hearts but beware the socialist aristocracy that wants to hunt you down as a dangerous criminal because you left town without telling them where you going… WHAT? Seriously, WHAT?!
Writing 101: Step one is figuring out what the fuck is going on in your own world. Step two is describing it for the reader in a way that makes sense.
I just don’t buy it. If Mia has access to a treatment that makes the old young, why doesn’t everyone have access to that? Because she’s part of the gerontocratic elite and she invested in the company, right? But we’re told that it isn’t about money. The very wealthy can’t just buy life extension. That’s parceled out according to how good a citizen you’ve been. And who makes that decision? And more importantly, if Mia has access to this treatment because she’s been a good citizen, explain to me why she’s a prisoner after she has it done. Explain to me why she’s a dangerous criminal because she takes her monitors off and skips town. Usually in writing you want to do as little explanation as possible. But you can only fail to explain things if they make SENSE.
If Sterling had created a world that seemed like a natural progression from the world we know it would have been awesome. If every time he described something a part of the reader’s brain said, “Of course. That’s exactly how it would happen,” then no explanation is necessary. But if you’re telling me that power is the hands of old people, when I know from my experiences with the world that most old people end up on a fixed income, decidedly not powerful, relying on family and government support after their ability to be productive has waned, then you’re going to have to explain why. If you’re telling me that there’s a world-wide government that controls essentially everything, unproblematically and uncontroversially, then you’re going to have to explain why there’s still an army. If you’re telling me that there’s this thing that everybody wants (life extension) and it’s not available to the super rich unless they’re a certain type of citizen, then you’re going to have to explain why money still exists (if it doesn’t buy what people want) or who makes the decisions and where that guy or government or organization gets its/his power and why someone else who wants what he can’t have hasn’t come to take it by force. That horrible Justin Timberlake movie from last year "In Time" did a much better job of addressing this question and presented a much more believable vision of a life-extension future. Much.
If your vision is counterintuitive, then you need to explain the logic behind it and you need to give me more than just “There were some plagues and a bunch of people died” as if that just explains everything because there’s no way to predict what would happen as the result of an apocalypse. Sorry… there are some pretty good books out there that examine, painstakingly, what the likely results of all manner of different kinds of apocalypses are and none of them comes up with an outmoded, enervated gerontocratic elite. If that’s your theory, you need to tell me why.
But really this wasn’t the problem that made me want to throw my iPad out the window over and over again. Mostly I just thought the whole thing was pretty shallow and pointless.
Our main character, Mia/Maya spends her whole life as a good girl who has no passions and no exciting adventures and then she gets a second chance. I totally get that as a premise. Sounds like an awesome start. Let’s see what you’d do if you had a chance to do it all over again. If you knew then what you know now… Awesome.
So what does Maya do? She goes to Germany and hangs out in a train station. Then she hooks up with a thief. Because she wants to experience passion? Well, she doesn’t really feel anything for him other than a general thumbs-up for sex, but I can get behind that. This isn’t a love story. Cool. Bring on the other types of passion. Where does she go next? She hangs out in a tent store with a bunch of gypsies and models clothes.
Uhmm… Okay. So her passion is being pretty? Not all that deep, but maybe there’s something here. Maybe what’s coming in an indictment of the amount of value we put on appearance. Maybe there’s something in here about how she was pretty when she was young and then she grew old and realized how beauty is only skin deep but now being pretty again we see it from another perspective and realize that there is something important about physical beauty to the human experience… Is that where you going? Beauty is truth and truth beauty? That sort of thing? No. That poem is quoted, but to what end? None that I could see.
She leaves the store without looking back so she can go hook up with artists in Stuttgart. No examination of any of those themes (or any others that I could tell). But here we go. Art is life. Awesome. Here’s where the passion comes in, right? Wrong again. She hangs out with a guy who has no memory for a while and accomplishes nothing (except sex = nifty again). Then she leaves him without a word and hangs out in a city where the walls are made of moss and accomplishes nothing. Then she comes back and sees the amnesiac again and doesn’t even stay for the afternoon.
Has she created anything? Has she studied art? Has she even improved his art (his pottery) or anyone else’s? Not that I can see. But wait, there’s a famous photographer in town. So now, two thirds of the way through the book she goes to see him. He’s not taking students but he lets her in because she remembers his most famous works from sixty years ago? He takes her on as a photography student because why exactly?
But fine, she’s finally found her passion, right? She’s going to take beautiful pictures. And over the course of the next twenty pages we see her following him around to a fashion show (that he is apparently required by law to attend, it’s so important and that conveniently is going on on the very day Maya arrives in his life) and immediately what people want from her is to make her a walking mannequin again. What she wants out of life is to wear make-up and nice clothes.
I’m done.
Maybe the book is building to something interesting. Maybe there’s a revolution coming. Maybe there’s something to this memory palace stuff that seems like non-sense at this point, but I’LL NEVER FIND OUT because I can’t stand wading through the superficial, unrealistic, illogical, disjointed and wandering crap that makes up the path to that point.
I am so done.
July 20, 2023
This book is a masterpiece. Sterling takes a single seed of an idea, radical life extension, and grows it into a mighty tree of a setting, with eminently realistic politics, economics, and design centered around the status quo of a world controlled by very responsible, very kind, and very old women. It a world that has gone through a great Crisis, and come out in some ways a utopia, but in other ways a perfectly padded prison that eats its own young like Saturn. And around the setting, Sterling builds an entire ecosystem of thought on youth, age, ambition, art, aesthetics, and what it means to be a human being.
Books like Holy Fire are why I read science-fiction.
*** UPDATE ***
On a reread 11 years later, some of the book's flaws become more apparent. The theory on art, artifice, and artificiality comes off as clunky and very obsolete. I'm not entirely sure that Sterling can write women well enough to make them a viewpoint character, though Maya is definitive not a woman, rather some kind of post-womanly being going through another puberty.
The setting still absolutely slams. Their gerontocracy of responsible old ladies trying to live forever in a polity where a near majority of people have retreated into artificial realities of VR and drugs is a lot better than our gerontocracy of lurching and erratic billionaires and the propagandized post-factual social networking. The questions of what it means to be human, to become more than human, and to be possessed of the Holy Fire necessary to create authentic art are as vital as ever.
Books like Holy Fire are why I read science-fiction.
*** UPDATE ***
On a reread 11 years later, some of the book's flaws become more apparent. The theory on art, artifice, and artificiality comes off as clunky and very obsolete. I'm not entirely sure that Sterling can write women well enough to make them a viewpoint character, though Maya is definitive not a woman, rather some kind of post-womanly being going through another puberty.
The setting still absolutely slams. Their gerontocracy of responsible old ladies trying to live forever in a polity where a near majority of people have retreated into artificial realities of VR and drugs is a lot better than our gerontocracy of lurching and erratic billionaires and the propagandized post-factual social networking. The questions of what it means to be human, to become more than human, and to be possessed of the Holy Fire necessary to create authentic art are as vital as ever.
June 10, 2020
Storyline: 2/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 4/5
World: 5/5
The first page of Holy Fire introduces us to a character whose profession is that of a medical economist. It is there, at the third sentence. Already one is prompted stop and ponder what exactly a medical economist would do, what kind of world would require, even permit such a profession. The pages and chapter thereafter are going to reveal those answers. In doing so, Sterling is going to build one of the most comprehensive, tantalizing, and believable near future visions of human society that I have ever encountered. It is a world in which the profession of medical economist makes perfect sense. It is a world where characters, problems, technology, ambitions, and politics fit together to create a genuinely coherent possible future. Holy Fire is a book worth reading, remembering, and discussing if only for that, but Sterling is going to do more. That more involves some flamboyant and fun technology, several outrageous characters, and some provocative philosophizing.
The supporting cast of characters do an especially good job supplementing and enriching Sterling’s world. The main character was, unfortunately, a weak point. The protagonist’s place in the story is to witness, learn from, and interact with the other characters and the world. Her role and presence in the story are important, but the author made some choices that kept her from being fully appreciated. Sterling employed the unreliable narrator tactic at times, but he seemed to forget to turn it to the “OFF” position occasionally, leeching uncertainty and confusion into passages and sections that were never intended to have such ambiguity. Fortunately, the author is juggling more than one object at a time, and one’s attention can drift away from the protagonist to one of the more dazzling objects in the performance.
The intriguing worldbuilding and philosophizing are going to take some unexpected turns, particularly for a book that is often regarded as belonging to the cyberpunk subgenre. Our story is going to lead us to the centers of fashion and style, taking us on a tour to meet artists. The defiance of the rules of society and the refusal to bend to the regulations of the ruling class, which define the criminal, cyber cowboy culture in works such as that of William Gibson, are here presented in the pushing of artistic boundaries and the everlasting pursuit of creativity by iconoclasts. Most of these characters are going to get an opportunity to pontificate on the nature, purposes, and direction of art. Most of them are going to disagree with one another. The substance of these conversations—supplemented marginally by the behaviors and interactions of the artists—is going to be the heart and message of the book. Most of the character development, a lot of the wordcount, and even a fair bit of the drama is going to take place in repeated instances of pontification. This makes for a thoughtful, albeit often a slow read. The writing in these sections is particularly good. There are some poetically moving and very witty observations as well as dozens of passages worthy of quoting. This made for pleasant reading in chunks but left the overall narrative with little momentum. A strategy like this needs to make up for the slow pace with a truly powerful ending. All the different ideas and possibilities have to be brought together in a final statement with meaning. Sterling, however, returns to the meager plot for the closing of the book, opting for a soft outro bringing the story to a close.
I had read Sterling’s Islands of the Net not too long ago. That was flashy and action-packed, quite unlike Holy Fire. Both novels suffered from pacing, Islands of the Net moving so fast that it was difficult to understand what was happening and Holy Fire so slowly that the book was sometimes a chore to return to. Both are informed by and concerned with political and economic systems, and particularly with some form of neoimperialism. Holy Fire was much more subtle in its treatment of the political and far more enjoyable because of it. Here Sterling, unlike in Islands of the Net did not need to give name to the forms of politics and economics he was discussing; he simply showed us how they functioned and what they meant for individual people and society at large. Of the two, I found Holy Fire to be far more meaningful and memorable, even though it lacked the edginess and bite of Islands of the Net and cyberpunk in general.
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 4/5
World: 5/5
The first page of Holy Fire introduces us to a character whose profession is that of a medical economist. It is there, at the third sentence. Already one is prompted stop and ponder what exactly a medical economist would do, what kind of world would require, even permit such a profession. The pages and chapter thereafter are going to reveal those answers. In doing so, Sterling is going to build one of the most comprehensive, tantalizing, and believable near future visions of human society that I have ever encountered. It is a world in which the profession of medical economist makes perfect sense. It is a world where characters, problems, technology, ambitions, and politics fit together to create a genuinely coherent possible future. Holy Fire is a book worth reading, remembering, and discussing if only for that, but Sterling is going to do more. That more involves some flamboyant and fun technology, several outrageous characters, and some provocative philosophizing.
The supporting cast of characters do an especially good job supplementing and enriching Sterling’s world. The main character was, unfortunately, a weak point. The protagonist’s place in the story is to witness, learn from, and interact with the other characters and the world. Her role and presence in the story are important, but the author made some choices that kept her from being fully appreciated. Sterling employed the unreliable narrator tactic at times, but he seemed to forget to turn it to the “OFF” position occasionally, leeching uncertainty and confusion into passages and sections that were never intended to have such ambiguity. Fortunately, the author is juggling more than one object at a time, and one’s attention can drift away from the protagonist to one of the more dazzling objects in the performance.
The intriguing worldbuilding and philosophizing are going to take some unexpected turns, particularly for a book that is often regarded as belonging to the cyberpunk subgenre. Our story is going to lead us to the centers of fashion and style, taking us on a tour to meet artists. The defiance of the rules of society and the refusal to bend to the regulations of the ruling class, which define the criminal, cyber cowboy culture in works such as that of William Gibson, are here presented in the pushing of artistic boundaries and the everlasting pursuit of creativity by iconoclasts. Most of these characters are going to get an opportunity to pontificate on the nature, purposes, and direction of art. Most of them are going to disagree with one another. The substance of these conversations—supplemented marginally by the behaviors and interactions of the artists—is going to be the heart and message of the book. Most of the character development, a lot of the wordcount, and even a fair bit of the drama is going to take place in repeated instances of pontification. This makes for a thoughtful, albeit often a slow read. The writing in these sections is particularly good. There are some poetically moving and very witty observations as well as dozens of passages worthy of quoting. This made for pleasant reading in chunks but left the overall narrative with little momentum. A strategy like this needs to make up for the slow pace with a truly powerful ending. All the different ideas and possibilities have to be brought together in a final statement with meaning. Sterling, however, returns to the meager plot for the closing of the book, opting for a soft outro bringing the story to a close.
I had read Sterling’s Islands of the Net not too long ago. That was flashy and action-packed, quite unlike Holy Fire. Both novels suffered from pacing, Islands of the Net moving so fast that it was difficult to understand what was happening and Holy Fire so slowly that the book was sometimes a chore to return to. Both are informed by and concerned with political and economic systems, and particularly with some form of neoimperialism. Holy Fire was much more subtle in its treatment of the political and far more enjoyable because of it. Here Sterling, unlike in Islands of the Net did not need to give name to the forms of politics and economics he was discussing; he simply showed us how they functioned and what they meant for individual people and society at large. Of the two, I found Holy Fire to be far more meaningful and memorable, even though it lacked the edginess and bite of Islands of the Net and cyberpunk in general.
October 14, 2008
Long on ideas, short on narrative. Sterling should be tapped to think up settings and backgrounds on a sci-fi tv series, or an ambitious futuristic film. Case in point: in Holy Fire, he projects the story past decades of plagues to imagine a medical-industrial complex run by "gerontocrats." A fine, not implausible notion. But Sterling's real strength is to extrapolate from this general premise, having Indonesia become the richest, healthiest nation in the world after the plague years (as an island nation, it was immune to the devastation). The final stroke of imaginative genius is that Indonesia then purchased Indianapolis from the poverty-striken United States, and used it for no-risk architectural experimentation. This small detail is more interesting than 100 pages of Mia/Maya's search for the "holy fire" of youthful creativity--ostensibly the novel's central plot.
March 7, 2015
I was intrigued by the premise of this book, the ultimate Boomer Utopia: old people control society and use technology and, er, well, let's not spoil things...to stay young. An old woman gets a new body and then travels to Europe where the book suddenly veers into the world of contemporary fashion and yet another anarchist character is presented as a sham loser (why can't anarchist characters ever be like real anarchists? Why do they always have to be exposed as frauds and valueless wimps?). Strong start, dumb ass conclusion, sorry, Bruce.
December 14, 2011
What would you do if you had a second chance at life? If you found the fountain of youth? Apparently the answer is "go apeshit crazy and live like a BoHo, wandering around Europe."
Snark aside, I wanted to like this book; I felt like I *should* like this book, but there's just something about his writing style that I just can't get through. It's set far enough in the future that things are supposed to be familiar-yet-foreign, and the author seems to dwell on descriptions of things that are supposed to be common. He seems to stand up and say "hey! look at how weird this is! Isn't this weird?!?!" and it's just plain distracting. For example, apparently 100 years in the future, animal cruelty is accepted practice, and rich people's pets can be "augmented" with technology to be plot devices, appearing at just the moment when the narrative has fallen so deep into a rat hole that nothing but a mad talking dog can get it out again.
To be fair, one of the talking dogs (yes, there are more than one) is a bit of a slap for the main character, revealing in one brief scene that the do-whatever-the-hell-I-want attitude of the main character and her new social group does indeed have consequences. In fact, that seems to be the only major consequence of ANY of the characters actions. There's this feeling that these characters are supposed to be "edgy" and "outside the law" but with the exception of one law enforcement official that has very little actual presence in the action of the novel, there's a lot of laying/sitting/standing around and not a lot of "running from the law."
And don't even get me started on the "But we're ARTISTS!" thread. The title of the book, "Holy Fire" is a metaphor for the inner passion felt by an artist, that force that drives them to create, and the fuel that powers their creativity. There is constant referral to "artifice" which I think we are supposed to think of as a future melding of all of the creative arts - architecture, painting, photography, etc. Supposedly all these artistes are creating amazing things that are going to change the world, but at no point are we really ever told about them. There's reference to some of the characters programming human-machine interfaces that apparently intend to do what they've been torturing animals with for a while, but the work of the rest of the characters doesn't seem to have any influence on the world. And maybe that's the point?
I certainly can identify with the frustration that the youth of this novel feel, trapped under the control of an aging aristocracy; a theme that is perhaps even more relavant today than when the novel was written over a decade ago. But it's hard to see how they're being oppressed. Socialism is widespread, drugs are readily available, and there seems to be a magic "tincture" for everything, and escapism on the 'net is common.
I... just don't know about this one.
Snark aside, I wanted to like this book; I felt like I *should* like this book, but there's just something about his writing style that I just can't get through. It's set far enough in the future that things are supposed to be familiar-yet-foreign, and the author seems to dwell on descriptions of things that are supposed to be common. He seems to stand up and say "hey! look at how weird this is! Isn't this weird?!?!" and it's just plain distracting. For example, apparently 100 years in the future, animal cruelty is accepted practice, and rich people's pets can be "augmented" with technology to be plot devices, appearing at just the moment when the narrative has fallen so deep into a rat hole that nothing but a mad talking dog can get it out again.
To be fair, one of the talking dogs (yes, there are more than one) is a bit of a slap for the main character, revealing in one brief scene that the do-whatever-the-hell-I-want attitude of the main character and her new social group does indeed have consequences. In fact, that seems to be the only major consequence of ANY of the characters actions. There's this feeling that these characters are supposed to be "edgy" and "outside the law" but with the exception of one law enforcement official that has very little actual presence in the action of the novel, there's a lot of laying/sitting/standing around and not a lot of "running from the law."
And don't even get me started on the "But we're ARTISTS!" thread. The title of the book, "Holy Fire" is a metaphor for the inner passion felt by an artist, that force that drives them to create, and the fuel that powers their creativity. There is constant referral to "artifice" which I think we are supposed to think of as a future melding of all of the creative arts - architecture, painting, photography, etc. Supposedly all these artistes are creating amazing things that are going to change the world, but at no point are we really ever told about them. There's reference to some of the characters programming human-machine interfaces that apparently intend to do what they've been torturing animals with for a while, but the work of the rest of the characters doesn't seem to have any influence on the world. And maybe that's the point?
I certainly can identify with the frustration that the youth of this novel feel, trapped under the control of an aging aristocracy; a theme that is perhaps even more relavant today than when the novel was written over a decade ago. But it's hard to see how they're being oppressed. Socialism is widespread, drugs are readily available, and there seems to be a magic "tincture" for everything, and escapism on the 'net is common.
I... just don't know about this one.
January 21, 2015
One of my favorite Sterling books, Holy Fire is very much a product of Sterling living overseas in Europe for an extended period of time. It details the misadventures of a age-rejuvenated woman (Maia) after a radical life extension procedure disturbs her extended old age. Sterling's post plague future is meticulous and quietly ruthless and the tour of it we see is both utopic and distopic in equal measures. The prose itself is a combination of the plain, expressive writing of early Sterling with occasional lapses into the kind of word collage/stream of consciousness that Gibson gets into in his most esoteric. Unlike Gibson, the world building detailed in both actions of the characters (nearly all distinct and well rounded, though sometimes rather static) and in expositionary asides and comments.
The novel deals heavily with posthumanity, but not in the overt, transhuman mode that has become the default in these days of Extropian expansion into the mainstream. Posthumans are abraded and worn away into their inhumanity by time and meticulous monitoring of neurochemistry, shaped by vast cultural and historical processes that make them very different from the people from today. It's mid term future history stretches about a hundred years into the future, and the action consists mostly of conversations and traveling. The book dips its toes, in that noncommittal way Sterling has, into aesthetics in a algorithmic world, the mathematics of life extension and what love and relationships mean in a world where religious experiences and memory dance to a chemist's tune.
A surprisingly human and personal look at a future that has many very plausible elements to it, while retaining the kind of hard edged speculation that makes Sterling one of the most thoughtful authors in SF.
The novel deals heavily with posthumanity, but not in the overt, transhuman mode that has become the default in these days of Extropian expansion into the mainstream. Posthumans are abraded and worn away into their inhumanity by time and meticulous monitoring of neurochemistry, shaped by vast cultural and historical processes that make them very different from the people from today. It's mid term future history stretches about a hundred years into the future, and the action consists mostly of conversations and traveling. The book dips its toes, in that noncommittal way Sterling has, into aesthetics in a algorithmic world, the mathematics of life extension and what love and relationships mean in a world where religious experiences and memory dance to a chemist's tune.
A surprisingly human and personal look at a future that has many very plausible elements to it, while retaining the kind of hard edged speculation that makes Sterling one of the most thoughtful authors in SF.
July 18, 2025
A fines del siglo XXI la gerontocracia domina el mundo, posthumanos millonarios se toman el poder instaurando una economía médica radical en busca de la inmortalidad. Un postulado para nada descabellado que Sterling desarrolla confrontando generaciones, sexos, seres vivos, drogas, maquinas, a través de un tour de force social por Europa Central, viendo hasta donde se puede estirar la condición humana sin perder lo trascendente, cuando ya ni siquiera puedes morir.
Se lee rápido, tiene muchos diálogos que rebozan ideas, personajes y escenas bien singulares (no muchas de cyberpunk puro, sí de ciencia ficción biológica), y quizás un excesivo despliegue de formas que puede aburrir a un lector de cf más clásico, mas no se puede negar lo plausible de su visión del mañana, una versión más integral del cyberpunk en la sociedad que está por venir.
Se lee rápido, tiene muchos diálogos que rebozan ideas, personajes y escenas bien singulares (no muchas de cyberpunk puro, sí de ciencia ficción biológica), y quizás un excesivo despliegue de formas que puede aburrir a un lector de cf más clásico, mas no se puede negar lo plausible de su visión del mañana, una versión más integral del cyberpunk en la sociedad que está por venir.
February 6, 2017
Holy Fire has some wonderful cyberpunk ideas and a few semi-profound truths on art. I liked that it sided equally with youth and age, showing the beauty and pitfalls of both.
But mostly it just felt flat.
Sterling has created a weird fascinating world (I would have been ready to read chapters on the new bio city of Stuttgart, or on the plague that caused its destruction) but we are stuck with his cardboard cereal characters, none of whom I empathised with or liked for a single second.
But mostly it just felt flat.
Sterling has created a weird fascinating world (I would have been ready to read chapters on the new bio city of Stuttgart, or on the plague that caused its destruction) but we are stuck with his cardboard cereal characters, none of whom I empathised with or liked for a single second.
November 16, 2021
El libro gira en torno de ‘El fuego sagrado’, o sea, el genio creador: el arte. Al volverse joven la protagonista descubrirá que no merece la pena tener una vida gris, y sacrificará su cómoda existencia por el riesgo y la búsqueda.
https://liblit.com/bruce-sterling-el-...
https://liblit.com/bruce-sterling-el-...
July 15, 2012
I read this book years ago, but only remembered the general gist of it. Having just finished a second read-through, I think I know why.
This is the kind of book that will resonate strongly with people who like the kind, but will leave others lost and bewildered. I'm in that second group. A very high-concept book, it's extremely hard to read, and incredibly difficult to fully grasp. Sterling uses concepts and ideas which he doesn't care to explain, so that only the most technically-minded readers are able to imagine what he meant. The book is full of philosophical and technical babble, which doesn't help. Key concepts to the book's world are never fully described - after reading the whole thing I still haven't got the foggiest idea what the "Holy Fire" is, how the net works in this world, or any certain info on... anything, really!
The story is... well, it's very badly executed. Things will happen, which seem to have no bearing on the plot whatsoever, while other things, which sound interesting, are only touched upon and then abandoned. Characters are wholly unlikeable and it's very difficult to understand or relate to their supposed motivations. It just seems that throughout the book not much happens - a lot of thoughts appear internally, within the main character's mind, but not much action stems from it. And I don't mean shooty-brawly-combaty action, I mean ANY kind of action. Things are discussed (art, philosophy, politics, science), but nothing changes, nothing happens.
The book is very chaotically written, with dialogues which lead nowhere, events which don't have any impact at all on anything, and sudden changes of locations, environments and situations, which completely lost me as a reader. I found it hard to follow the plot, which is basically derailed starting from the second chapter - only 1/4 or so of the book! - and never reaches any kind of valuable conclusion. I read the Polish translation of it, so it may be a problem which is made more serious by that fact, but I have a feeling that it may not be wholly the translator's fault.
When you add all that to a, perhaps, realized (but unpenetrable) cyberpunk setting, which includes some things which I found didn't quite fit in there (like DNA operations which revert you to a primate state or intelligent dogs running talk-shows), it becomes even harder to go through this book believing what you're reading actually happened. I find that "internal world realism" is CRITICAL for Science-Fiction and Fantasy settings - if it doesn't make sense within that fictional world's rules and unique "feel", it is even more so unbelievable than if it would happen in the real world. Sterling dropped the ball in that department - which is the final blow to a book which could've been saved by an interesting world.
This book will only appeal to hardcore sf connoisseurs. For any other reader, even cyberpunk enthusiasts like myself, this may be a chore, or even a completely hopeless attempt at trying to find a good thing about the book - with neither story, nor characters, or even setting being a saving grace, there's really not that much here to keep you interested in the convoluted narrative.
This is the kind of book that will resonate strongly with people who like the kind, but will leave others lost and bewildered. I'm in that second group. A very high-concept book, it's extremely hard to read, and incredibly difficult to fully grasp. Sterling uses concepts and ideas which he doesn't care to explain, so that only the most technically-minded readers are able to imagine what he meant. The book is full of philosophical and technical babble, which doesn't help. Key concepts to the book's world are never fully described - after reading the whole thing I still haven't got the foggiest idea what the "Holy Fire" is, how the net works in this world, or any certain info on... anything, really!
The story is... well, it's very badly executed. Things will happen, which seem to have no bearing on the plot whatsoever, while other things, which sound interesting, are only touched upon and then abandoned. Characters are wholly unlikeable and it's very difficult to understand or relate to their supposed motivations. It just seems that throughout the book not much happens - a lot of thoughts appear internally, within the main character's mind, but not much action stems from it. And I don't mean shooty-brawly-combaty action, I mean ANY kind of action. Things are discussed (art, philosophy, politics, science), but nothing changes, nothing happens.
The book is very chaotically written, with dialogues which lead nowhere, events which don't have any impact at all on anything, and sudden changes of locations, environments and situations, which completely lost me as a reader. I found it hard to follow the plot, which is basically derailed starting from the second chapter - only 1/4 or so of the book! - and never reaches any kind of valuable conclusion. I read the Polish translation of it, so it may be a problem which is made more serious by that fact, but I have a feeling that it may not be wholly the translator's fault.
When you add all that to a, perhaps, realized (but unpenetrable) cyberpunk setting, which includes some things which I found didn't quite fit in there (like DNA operations which revert you to a primate state or intelligent dogs running talk-shows), it becomes even harder to go through this book believing what you're reading actually happened. I find that "internal world realism" is CRITICAL for Science-Fiction and Fantasy settings - if it doesn't make sense within that fictional world's rules and unique "feel", it is even more so unbelievable than if it would happen in the real world. Sterling dropped the ball in that department - which is the final blow to a book which could've been saved by an interesting world.
This book will only appeal to hardcore sf connoisseurs. For any other reader, even cyberpunk enthusiasts like myself, this may be a chore, or even a completely hopeless attempt at trying to find a good thing about the book - with neither story, nor characters, or even setting being a saving grace, there's really not that much here to keep you interested in the convoluted narrative.
February 19, 2019
94-year-old Mia Ziemann has lived an impeccable existence, avoiding the myriad vices available throughout the 21st century. But even her pure lifestyle cannot prevent the ravages of time, and she suffers from health problems only radical medical procedures can cure. Because she can afford it, and because she has lived such a virtuous life, she is eligible for any number of experimental medical treatments to prolong it. The first risk she has to take, to join the post-human condition, makes Mia realize she never really lived.
While the theme of a life without risk not being worth living is foremost in Bruce Sterling’s Holy Fire, he also tackles such concerns as health care and control, the ethics of prolonging life in a democratic society, and what all this has to do with art. This seems like a lot to take on in 300 pages, but Sterling is nothing if not ambitious. This ambition often overpowered both story and character in the past (e.g., Schismatrix, where the Prigoginian treatise towered above a simple plot of warring factions). But Mia is fully realized, with truly interesting flaws (her fanatical obsession about protecting herself), and a desire, one that had lain hidden until renewed life brings it into the open. It is this desire, this flame that burns within us all, that Sterling showcases in Holy Fire: a desire to live, not just survive.
For long-time Sterling readers, Holy Fire continues to explore how humanity interacts with new technology. Sterling’s Shaper/Mechanist stories followed the evolution of humans into two separate camps—the Shapers who modified themselves biologically, and the Mechanists who married themselves with technology. In these stories, Sterling assumed future humans would all be modified—all post-human. In Holy Fire, he again explores posthumanity, but instead of being set against each other, they are set apart from humanity. The struggle thus depicted is merely an exaggerated extension of current trends (the aged vs. the young).
Holy Fire is dense with ideas, but smooth in execution. Sterling has crafted a rich world that no other author, past or present, could have created, filled with the insights only Sterling can provide.
While the theme of a life without risk not being worth living is foremost in Bruce Sterling’s Holy Fire, he also tackles such concerns as health care and control, the ethics of prolonging life in a democratic society, and what all this has to do with art. This seems like a lot to take on in 300 pages, but Sterling is nothing if not ambitious. This ambition often overpowered both story and character in the past (e.g., Schismatrix, where the Prigoginian treatise towered above a simple plot of warring factions). But Mia is fully realized, with truly interesting flaws (her fanatical obsession about protecting herself), and a desire, one that had lain hidden until renewed life brings it into the open. It is this desire, this flame that burns within us all, that Sterling showcases in Holy Fire: a desire to live, not just survive.
For long-time Sterling readers, Holy Fire continues to explore how humanity interacts with new technology. Sterling’s Shaper/Mechanist stories followed the evolution of humans into two separate camps—the Shapers who modified themselves biologically, and the Mechanists who married themselves with technology. In these stories, Sterling assumed future humans would all be modified—all post-human. In Holy Fire, he again explores posthumanity, but instead of being set against each other, they are set apart from humanity. The struggle thus depicted is merely an exaggerated extension of current trends (the aged vs. the young).
Holy Fire is dense with ideas, but smooth in execution. Sterling has crafted a rich world that no other author, past or present, could have created, filled with the insights only Sterling can provide.
March 2, 2015
The longer I read this book, the fewer stars it got. It started off as a strong 5-star speculative fiction winner. Really interesting views on what the next 100 years of humanity will bring. What post-humans will look like, think like. Some of his theories are silly or ridiculous. But a lot of them are within the realm of conceivable possibility, and thus interesting.
But it takes more than some interesting concepts to make a novel. You also need a plot. And you need characters who aren't flat, insipid nothings. Even the European Literati, spouting deep and meaningful insight into the nature of art and humanity were BLAH. So boring. So pointless.
There is a lot of interesting philosophy in here. And if it had been packaged as a series of speculative essays on 21st century fin-de-siècle humanity, that would have been great. But it isn't. It's sold as a novel. Which it most definitely is not.
If you are a pointy headed academic intellectual, there are heaps of fodder here for you to work on with some freshmen literature class. You could come up with all sorts of interesting book club questions on the nature of this or that character and how their environment shaped their views and actions.
But the truth is, every time Sterling came close to an actual plot in this book he skittered away like a nervous kitten. There were a couple of times when an actual story could have broken out. So close! And then ... NOTHING. Just ... nothing.
All I can say is I'm glad to be done with this book and free of it.
But it takes more than some interesting concepts to make a novel. You also need a plot. And you need characters who aren't flat, insipid nothings. Even the European Literati, spouting deep and meaningful insight into the nature of art and humanity were BLAH. So boring. So pointless.
There is a lot of interesting philosophy in here. And if it had been packaged as a series of speculative essays on 21st century fin-de-siècle humanity, that would have been great. But it isn't. It's sold as a novel. Which it most definitely is not.
If you are a pointy headed academic intellectual, there are heaps of fodder here for you to work on with some freshmen literature class. You could come up with all sorts of interesting book club questions on the nature of this or that character and how their environment shaped their views and actions.
But the truth is, every time Sterling came close to an actual plot in this book he skittered away like a nervous kitten. There were a couple of times when an actual story could have broken out. So close! And then ... NOTHING. Just ... nothing.
All I can say is I'm glad to be done with this book and free of it.
August 11, 2009
The concept seemed promising (medical technology puts immortality within humanity's grasp), but the execution was slack. Sterling's protagonist, Maya, has lived carefully and compliantly and therefore has access to the best medical care and life-extension treatments. But there's not much life in her life. From his death bed an old lover bequeaths her his "memory palace," a private data haven. I thought perhaps Maya would grapple with the issues of extended life: is boredom inevitable as you surpass your tenth decade? as power becomes concentrated in the hands of long-lived elders will young people be disenfrachised and will society stagnate? Instead Maya suddenly undergoes a radical new treatment that transforms her body into that of a gorgeous 20-year-old and that seems to destabilize her personality. She takes off for Europe where she wanders from town to town and lover to lover -- one trivial adventure follows the next in this tensionless bildungsroman in which the protagonist never seems to mature.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2015
Man, I hate ratings sometimes.
The narrative drive in this book is weak; it's basically a picaresque of this posthuman society. The characterization is thin, or at least the characters often came across as inscrutable to me. So as a novel it's kind of a fail. One star.
But the interplay of concerns over the meaning of art and humanity is fascinating. Also, there is at least one mind-blowing idea every few pages. I constantly re-checked the pub date because this is so contemporary; it feels hardly dated at all despite being almost 20 years old. In fact, I suspect it's easier to understand now than it was on first publication.
The society of the gerontocrats seems imminently plausible, too. Whether it is a future generation or merely a metaphor for the aging Boomers will only be answered in time.
So for sensawunda, four stars.
The narrative drive in this book is weak; it's basically a picaresque of this posthuman society. The characterization is thin, or at least the characters often came across as inscrutable to me. So as a novel it's kind of a fail. One star.
But the interplay of concerns over the meaning of art and humanity is fascinating. Also, there is at least one mind-blowing idea every few pages. I constantly re-checked the pub date because this is so contemporary; it feels hardly dated at all despite being almost 20 years old. In fact, I suspect it's easier to understand now than it was on first publication.
The society of the gerontocrats seems imminently plausible, too. Whether it is a future generation or merely a metaphor for the aging Boomers will only be answered in time.
So for sensawunda, four stars.
November 23, 2014
"I have desires which do not accord with the status quo."
This book is kind of talky; there are moments when you hit a hard patch of exposition that you need to slog through. Paul the theorist is particularly annoying in this regard. But I love the portrayal of women in this book, especially the main character of Mia/Maya, a 96-year-old woman who undergoes a radical life extension treatment and is driven insane by her schizophrenic hormones. She settles down in the end but not before she causes a fair amount of havoc. Super-fun medley of ideas about society, medicine, politics and culture. Lots to think about.
This book is kind of talky; there are moments when you hit a hard patch of exposition that you need to slog through. Paul the theorist is particularly annoying in this regard. But I love the portrayal of women in this book, especially the main character of Mia/Maya, a 96-year-old woman who undergoes a radical life extension treatment and is driven insane by her schizophrenic hormones. She settles down in the end but not before she causes a fair amount of havoc. Super-fun medley of ideas about society, medicine, politics and culture. Lots to think about.
January 17, 2018
I am not sure this book is excellent on its own terms--but after reading nearly everything else he's written, I think this is the most Bruce Sterling book ever. I enjoyed it.
May 7, 2017
Strikingly lovely. A meditation on age and youth, on the cyclical shape of history and culture, on safety and freedom. Stunningly well realized, strong characters, vivid world-building and emotion.
December 4, 2022
My favorite of Sterling's novels. Holds up well to rereading.
A good review: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/07...
A good review: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/07...
February 13, 2017
One of my top five favorite books. I crave being able to write a book this unique and startling.
March 5, 2019
Bruce Sterling is an excellent writer, which is why this book, which is not one of his better ones, is still quite good. It is partially an exercise in world-building, but mostly focuses on exploring some of the effects that a certain form of post-humanism could have on the character of certain people.
In a lot of ways, it reminds me of William Gibson's Blue Ant trilogy, though set further in the future and with a more decidedly science-fiction plot. Similar to the Blue Ant trilogy, the main character is driven to explore many new subcultures across several countries that she was previously unfamiliar with.
It's not a high-speed thriller or a mystery, just a character study in an interesting slightly post-human world. If you're into the cyberpunk and especially post-cyberpunk aesthetic, it's worth a read (though obviously if you're into that you, like me, will eventually work your way through Bruce Sterling's entire back catalog, so there's no need for my endorsement here).
3.5 of 5 stars
In a lot of ways, it reminds me of William Gibson's Blue Ant trilogy, though set further in the future and with a more decidedly science-fiction plot. Similar to the Blue Ant trilogy, the main character is driven to explore many new subcultures across several countries that she was previously unfamiliar with.
It's not a high-speed thriller or a mystery, just a character study in an interesting slightly post-human world. If you're into the cyberpunk and especially post-cyberpunk aesthetic, it's worth a read (though obviously if you're into that you, like me, will eventually work your way through Bruce Sterling's entire back catalog, so there's no need for my endorsement here).
3.5 of 5 stars
August 14, 2021
Holy Fire explores possibilities of the unnaturally long or never-ending lifespan. What if humans finally beat the aging process all together, staying healthy and youthful forever, etc. Sterling demonstrates the possible drawbacks of this for the young.
Mia, a 90+ year old, participates in a rejuvenation process that reboots her brain and hormones, allowing her to be artificially young again, regaining sex drive, energy, and a youthful body. Instead of sticking around to be monitored and protected under medical advice, she heads for Europe.
Mia creates a new identity called Maya and becomes the reader’s tour guide through the world. She is homeless and relies on others for shelter/money etc. All the young people are living like this unless they inherited money from older relatives. The older generations who stayed healthy enough to work, like Mia did before the transformation, have all the financial security, while the young are in a hopeless struggle.
The story isn’t about the technology that allows people to live longer and healthier lives, but rather about a stagnant society blamed on the elderly. This is a pop culture phenomenon my husband refers to as, “Youth is cool. Old is stupid.” Even the older characters think aging is bad and they use medical technology to fight it, but they don’t consider consequences for the future generations.
The successful people Maya meets are over 100 years old and still the top in their field. The twenty-somethings have no way of getting experience and moving up when old-timers refuse to step down. One aspiring fashion designer says of a 121-year-old one:
“He has everything, and he’s going to keep it forever. There’s just no way to challenge him.”
The effect of this Gerontocracy is that everything in the world is heavily controlled by a “benevolent fascism,” free from guns or plagues or other dangers that the older set survived. This would also lead to a lack of risk. Isn’t taking risks what creativity comes from? All this security protects the elderly but harms the twenty-somethings.
“You see my darling, in order to make this world safe for the very old we have changed life for the young in ways that are truly evil.”
This is a highly thought-provoking and engaging novel as we observe Maya’s character arc, and she takes us through the polarized world of youth vs. experience Sterling created.
Mia, a 90+ year old, participates in a rejuvenation process that reboots her brain and hormones, allowing her to be artificially young again, regaining sex drive, energy, and a youthful body. Instead of sticking around to be monitored and protected under medical advice, she heads for Europe.
Mia creates a new identity called Maya and becomes the reader’s tour guide through the world. She is homeless and relies on others for shelter/money etc. All the young people are living like this unless they inherited money from older relatives. The older generations who stayed healthy enough to work, like Mia did before the transformation, have all the financial security, while the young are in a hopeless struggle.
The story isn’t about the technology that allows people to live longer and healthier lives, but rather about a stagnant society blamed on the elderly. This is a pop culture phenomenon my husband refers to as, “Youth is cool. Old is stupid.” Even the older characters think aging is bad and they use medical technology to fight it, but they don’t consider consequences for the future generations.
The successful people Maya meets are over 100 years old and still the top in their field. The twenty-somethings have no way of getting experience and moving up when old-timers refuse to step down. One aspiring fashion designer says of a 121-year-old one:
“He has everything, and he’s going to keep it forever. There’s just no way to challenge him.”
The effect of this Gerontocracy is that everything in the world is heavily controlled by a “benevolent fascism,” free from guns or plagues or other dangers that the older set survived. This would also lead to a lack of risk. Isn’t taking risks what creativity comes from? All this security protects the elderly but harms the twenty-somethings.
“You see my darling, in order to make this world safe for the very old we have changed life for the young in ways that are truly evil.”
This is a highly thought-provoking and engaging novel as we observe Maya’s character arc, and she takes us through the polarized world of youth vs. experience Sterling created.
February 18, 2020
Transcendent! Every page sparkles and pops with Ideas. Vivid and blazing with a peculiar brand of intelligence.
Makes me believe that edible cities, dog talk show hosts, effective immortality, crab waiters, translator wigs, radical Bohemian cyberpunk art movements, and public health care could be mundane aspects of the real world -- or at least as real as artifice.
It's always fascinating to read about future worlds that aren't dystopias and that aren't not utopias, but have ethical dilemmas at a deep structural level that causes hesitation regardless... There's authenticity underlying the fantastical elements that cuts deep in the best way.
One thing is that I would have liked more interiority to Maya, especially at first, but I suppose the detachment was appropriate to her journey. I did appreciate the occasional flashes of insight at key moments, almost enough emotional depth to balance the ideological depth.
Reads as a series of scenes and encounters that feel narratively disjointed, but all tie strongly together along the same themes and serve to explore the same sandbox of ideas -- just how I like it, apparently.
Makes me believe that edible cities, dog talk show hosts, effective immortality, crab waiters, translator wigs, radical Bohemian cyberpunk art movements, and public health care could be mundane aspects of the real world -- or at least as real as artifice.
It's always fascinating to read about future worlds that aren't dystopias and that aren't not utopias, but have ethical dilemmas at a deep structural level that causes hesitation regardless... There's authenticity underlying the fantastical elements that cuts deep in the best way.
One thing is that I would have liked more interiority to Maya, especially at first, but I suppose the detachment was appropriate to her journey. I did appreciate the occasional flashes of insight at key moments, almost enough emotional depth to balance the ideological depth.
Reads as a series of scenes and encounters that feel narratively disjointed, but all tie strongly together along the same themes and serve to explore the same sandbox of ideas -- just how I like it, apparently.
July 13, 2009
Sterling is a better speaker than he is a novelist in my estimation. Rich ideas, Ideas that a real writer creates characters and pathos with. There is something charming and intelligent at work in this book, but there is something of the very "artifice" that is the critique of one of his characters Paul. So he is aware of this and tries unsuccessfully to transcend it, at least for me. Clearly a problem with this book is getting past being a pastiche. Lots of relevant ironies, but ultimately too grounded by concepts and not enough solid story telling.
January 5, 2017
Este libro es aburrido si esperas una trama. Pero la vida es mas que un principio y un fin. La pregunta principal del libro es simple ¿Qué hace que tu sangre arda? ¿Si pudieras cambiar tu vida complaciente, por qué sería? ¿Qué harías si el dinero y el tiempo no fueran problema? ¿Es el gap generacional un invento para dividir a los consumidores? ¿Es la seguridad lo mejor a lo que podemos aspirar? ¿Cual es el combustible en el alma de un humano?
Sterling no ofrece respuestas, los buenos autores ofrecen buenas preguntas.
Sterling no ofrece respuestas, los buenos autores ofrecen buenas preguntas.
July 8, 2011
A thoughtful consideration of what the world might be like when technology can "cure" aging. I read this perhaps fifteen years ago, but I was recently reminded of it by a news article claiming that we'll all be living to at least 150, in good health, within a decade or two. The book considers what it might be like to be an old person in a young body - not as great as it sounds. Now that I'm older, I think I can appreciate the conflicts even more than when I read this.
October 29, 2016
Interesting ideas but no cohesive plot development to sustain interest. Sometimes the writing can be melodramatic; it needs a good solid edit. But the ideas of what it means to live forever, our relation to technology and medicine and Sterling's abundant imagination and vision of a our future are wonderful.
August 4, 2007
I have to admit, I didn't like this book very much when I first read it. Since then, however, it's grown on me and I find myself constantly referring to it. When I recently reread it, I was amazed at how much I'd missed.
September 6, 2012
You want to read about an 98 year old having an midlife crisis? You want to see how little people can participate in an very interesting vision of the future? This is your book. It was to mine...
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