Swarm

by Bruce Sterling

In the 23rd century, Humanity has fallen in two opposing fractions: gene-editing Shapers, striving for optimised biology and genius intelligence, and the Mechanists, replacing anatomy with cybernetic parts. This story follows Shapers, who have found a competitive advantage in dealing with an alien race.

They buy transport to the Beteigeuse system, where they want to investigate an even more alien race, the Swarm. That one has been around for millions of years, consisting of ant like beings which aren’t intelligent and don’t have a language besides their pheromones.

The Shaper agent thinks that he can exploit them. He only needs to test the workings of his artificially produced pheromones and bring back the gene sequence of the aliens. An endless army of mindless, efficient workers as biological machines would sure enough help the Shapers dominate humanity.

Well, the Swarm has survived a long time, and humans aren’t the first ones to exploit them.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction

18 pages, Unknown Binding

First published April 1, 1982

About the author

Bruce 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).

Reviews

[Clora · Rating 4 out of 5]

-conceptually interesting but ends very suddenly after the climax and doesn't really leave the reader with a satisfying conclusion.
-the intellectual predecessor of peter watts' blindsight, which finishes its thesis on the burden of intelligence on evolution.
-roughly equivalent in information to the love, death, and robots adaptation. i recommend watching the short film instead.

[Ibrahim Abouzied · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a novelette, at just eighteen pages you can easily finish it in one sitting. I read this off of a recommendation of its adaptation in the newest season of Love, Death, and Robots.

It was decent, but just that. For a book written forty years ago, it has a lot of sci-fi elements that I was surprised to see mentioned from so long ago. Sterling is excellent at sneaking in intricate details that you wouldn't think of yourself but make you go "Oh that makes total sense!". He'll drop a passing mention of humans making a gene modification to produce enzymes that we'd only get through our gut microbiome so that we can be a space-faring race. His attention to detail is what make this story great, but I feel I would have better appreciated it when the relevant fields were closer to their infancy back when the story was written.

The plot isn't that extensive, I mean its eighteen pages so there's not much to mess up here.

Though I haven't seen it, I would recommend watching the LDR adaptation over reading this story.

[Bok McDonagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of human factions fighting to become more intelligent than each other. The Mechanists rely on mechanical augmentation, while the Reshapers rely on genetic engineering and intelligence quotients. A Reshaper is sent to take advantage of an unintelligent swarm, a hive mind and is given a lesson in the nature of intelligence.

[Konstantin Trunin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Добротная фантастика с уникальной идеей расы-типа-космо-пчел которая на поверку оказывается более древней чем человечество и все другие расы и более продуманной. Скорее всего человечество в его обычном понимание обречено, но зарождается
мысль что может быть это и не плохо...
На основе рассказа была снята отличная серия в Love, Death & Robots. В принципе достаточно ее посмотреть а не читать.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick, decent read.

[Shalon Montgomery · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recommend just watching Love, Death and Robots. The additional information received from the actual text doesn’t add a ton for the reader unless there is a sequel.

[duck · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this on a whim after watching the Netflix short on love, death, and robots - pleasantly surprised at how gripping it was, even knowing how it ends

[Ferdiazreyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesante visión de la evolución de los seres “inteligentes “

[Aaron Beardsell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crammed to the gills with fascinating ideas. At only 18 pages long, I was craving more.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for school

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

It reads as a chapter in a larger series of books on how humanity will either become genetic freaks or machine integrated cyborgs; I would lie by omission if I did not refer to netflix episode love death and robots who introduced the story to me; it has few different beats but is more or less the same.