Infinity's Shore | Schismatrix Plus | The Sparrow

Infinity's Shore

Jijo's exiles face the wrath of the Star Gods

• Infinity's Shore
• By David Brin
• Bantam Books
• $23.95
• Hardcover, Nov. 1996

nfinity's Shore is the second book in David Brin's new Uplift trilogy, and it picks up at the exact second the first book -- Brightness Reef -- left off. The inhabitants of the planet Jijo live there illegally, hiding on a world that has been designated to lie fallow for a million years. Over the centuries at least six races, from humans to the wheeled g'Keks, came to this hidden haven to escape Galactic culture for various reasons. Together they live in a pre-technological, but quite civilized, society. But big trouble drops into their laps in the form of the human exploration ship Streaker. On a routine expedition Streaker found a two-billion-year-old derelict fleet of immense value, and since then she's been on the run from dozens of alien armadas that want the secret.

While the Jijoans have always feared discovery by the law, nothing has prepared them for the Jophur battleship that comes after Streaker and is willing to "slay-sift the entire ecosystem" to find it. Jijo's harmonious society falls apart overnight. There is panic, exaltation, armed resistance and civil war. A score of characters struggle to achieve exciting goals and epic plans, sometimes working together, sometimes in opposition. Families are rent asunder and new loves are found. And all the while poor Streaker hopes to carry its terrible burden home against all odds, and save Earth, now threatened with extinction.

Brin weaves this complex web quite handily. The intricate society that he built so well in Brightness Reef crashes down like the Hindenburg, beautiful and terrible. The plethora of viewpoint characters ensures that readers get to see all the grand sites and heroic deeds in the process. Brin also continues to explore, as he has throughout the Uplift series, the question of evolved human intelligence versus intelligence gained through the scientific process of uplift. Galactic culture in this universe has been presented, for the most part, as immature, squabbling and childish. But the uplifted aliens on Jijo, forced to struggle for existence instead of having it handed to them, show signs of growth toward a more human mind-set.

Strangely, Brin tends to hide the actual moments of "big action" from readers. A chapter will end, for example, with someone starting to slip off a cliff. When the thread resumes, she has already been rescued and the incident is related as exposition. Why Brin chooses to look away at these crucial points is a mystery. Perhaps he is deliberately trying to tone down the novel's "space opera" aspect, or maybe he's just gun-shy.

Still, Infinity's Shore exceeds the expectations created by Brightness Reef and is an exciting, sweeping installment in an excellent series.

Will it really only be a trilogy? I could happily go longer. -- Brooks

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Schismatrix Plus

The Shapers -- and Mechanists -- of things to come

• Schismatrix Plus
• By Bruce Sterling
• Ace Books
• $13.00/$11.00 Canada
• Trade paperback, Dec. 1996

chismatrix Plus gathers Bruce Sterling's five "Shaper-Mechanist" short stories of the early 1980s with his 1985 Shaper-Mech novel Schismatrix. In these works Sterling launched a guerrilla raid on the comfortable conventions of science fiction. Sterling's future history is neither a bland techno-utopia nor a dreary post-apocalypse ruin. Schismatrix Plus portrays instead a future of constant upheaval, fueled by non-stop social and technological change, the hardships of life in space, and humanity's own restlessness.

In this future two factions vie for control of the solar system. The Shapers have "reshaped" themselves through genetic engineering, adopting such enhancements as superior intelligence, longevity and odor-free perspiration. In the other corner lurk the Mechanists, who prefer to gradually replace their mortal flesh with prosthetic limbs and artificial organs.

The hero of Schismatrix, Abelard Lindsay, is neither Shaper nor Mechanist but merely a rabble-rouser in exile from a backwater space habitat. His quick wits and Shaper schooling, however, make him a consummate con artist, politician and survivor. Making his way through a dense, ever-changing web of plots, conspiracies, feuds and occasional small-scale wars, Lindsay manages to outfox Shapers, Mechs and even the Investors, reptilian aliens so rapacious they make Star Trek's Ferengi look like the Sierra Club.

In his turbo-charged tour of the future, Sterling shows his genius for conjuring bizarre, unsettling yet plausible settings, from grubby spaceships infested with mutant cockroaches to incomprehensibly strange alien vistas. Humanity itself, however, becomes the ultimate fountainhead of strangeness as various self-made strains of "posthumanity" overshadow the squabbling Shapers and Mechs and the technologically stagnant Investors.

The short stories alone are worth the price of admission, though their relentlessly dark tone can be oppressive if read all at once. Schismatrix is more upbeat, leavened by humor, a likable main character and a sense of exhilaration over the unbounded possibilities of posthuman life. The novel suffers from a couple dull stretches in the first half, and while Abelard Lindsay makes for an appealing protagonist, readers seldom know what he truly thinks or feels. Such narrative distancing can lend a magisterial tone to a novel encompassing many characters, but Schismatrix frustrates at times by remaining tightly focused on Lindsay without ever getting inside his head. Still, Schismatrix packs a full load of wonder, entertainment and wild ideas.

Schismatrix Plus also includes an essay by Sterling in which he talks about his growth as a science fiction writer, how he attained a "hot and sticky ten-fingered grip on the genre" and "gnawed my way through the insulation and got my teeth set into the buzzing copper wire." As he often does, Sterling seems insufferably pleased with himself here. More than many writers, however, he has reason to be.

Much of Sterling's best work is collected here. A must-read for anyone interested in truly cutting-edge science fiction. -- Curt

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The Sparrow

He went to learn and discover, but he will return a broken man

• The Sparrow
• By Mary Doria Russell
• Villard
• $23.00/$32.00 Canada
• Hardcover, Oct. 1996

immy Quinn is the lowest ranking astronomer on staff at the Aceribo, Puerto Rico, observatory. While running SETI routines that monitor the skies for extraterrestrial signals, he surprises both himself and the world when he intercepts unearthly music originating from Alpha Centauri.

One of the first to hear of this remarkable discovery is Father Emilo Sandoz, a Puerto Rican Jesuit priest who is Jimmy's friend and confidante. Through a series of unlikely events -- alternately attributed to luck and/or God's will -- Sandoz convinces the Jesuits to launch an exploratory expedition to make contact with the "Singers."

Sandoz himself leads an extraordinary eight-person crew -- made up of Catholic priests, avowed agnostics, and a beautiful Jewess -- to find the source of the music. They discover Rakhat, an Eden-like world inhabited by the Runa, a peaceful race that lives in cliff caves and gathers plants for sustenance. Sandoz, a skilled linguist, quickly learns the Runa's language, but disaster results because the humans are unable to understand the Runa culture or the importance of the Jana'ata, another sentient race on the planet.

When a second crew arrives on Rakhat three years later, they find Sandoz imprisoned in a Jana'ata brothel. Maimed in both body and spirit, the sole survivor of the Jesuit expedition is charged with prostitution and murder and sent back to Rome to answer damning accusations about the mission and his role in its failure.

The Sparrow is a soul-searching tale that takes readers on an interplanetary and spiritual journey through the unknown. It is the story of Sandoz, a Jesuit priest who is as much a doubting Thomas as he is a suffering saint. The book opens with the failure of the mission to Rakhat and the uncertain rehabilitation of Father Sandoz. Although the beginning of the novel is somewhat depressing, it creates a morbid interest in discovering how the catastrophe of the mission came about.

The story itself is presented in two separate narratives. Passages alternately contrast scenes of expedition activities with their devastating aftermath, keeping suspense high. Mary Doria Russell's background in anthropology is evident as she creates a fascinating world of cause and effect in a society composed of two races, one predator and one prey.

Russell's debut novel also focuses on her characters, and it is here that the work truly shines. An entertaining infusion of humor keeps the book from becoming too dark, although some characters are so clever that they sometimes seem contrived. Readers who dislike an emphasis on moral dilemmas or spiritual quests may be turned off, but those who enjoy science fiction because it can create these things are in for a real treat.

Keep the tissues handy. It's hard to get through this one without shedding a tear or two. -- Susan

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