Holy Fire (Bantam Spectra Book)

This book was a big surprise to me. I have been a fan of the Cyberpunk or Movement genre since the 80's, and while Gibson and Rucker have captivated me with almost every book they write, Sterling's work has always... lacked something for me. I've enjoyed his short stories more than I have his novels, and have given them a fair shot. Most of them I would rate about a 3. This novel however, I place squarely in the full 5 star category. The best works of fiction, be they SciFi, Horror, Literature or what have you, are those which make one reflect upon oneself and the nature of existence. This book falls into such august company. A few of the reviews here mention the lack of action or resolution, but I think that they have missed the point. Mia/Maya is discovering both what it means to be an individual and what the nature of life is. She is both an observer and a participant as she is neither truly old or young. Her "wanderjahr" is an exploration and evolution of self and as such, despite the futuristic trappings resonates with the individual quest for the self and what lies beyond it in all of our lives no matter where we are on life's journey. I would hope that everyone makes such a journey in their lives (whether literally or metaphorically), or better yet, experiences life as a continuous unfoldment of same. Highly recommended, in my opinon Sterling's absolute best.

_____________________________________________ Mia, a 94-yr old woman at the close of the 21st C., tries a new life- extension treatment. She emerges in the body of a thrill-seeking 20-yr-old. . . you say you've seen this story before? Not as related by master extrapolationist, storyteller & all-around fine writer Bruce Sterling. Let's go into the polity, the medical-industrial complex that rules the world, where "the whip-hand of coercive power is held by smiling & stout-hearted medical rescue personnel. And by social workers. And by very nice old people. . ." "There were, of course, some people who disagreed with the entire idea of life extension. Their moral decision was respected & they were perfectly free to drop dead." The story-line is simple: a bildungsroman, the wanderjahr of a 95-yr-old girl thru 21st C. Europe. We're at a fashion show in fin-de-siecle Roma. Mia is getting ready: ..they put the wig on & she left human perfection for a higher realm. It was a very smart wig. This wig could have leapt from her scalp like a supersonic octopus & flung its piercing tendrils right thru a plaster wall... It was a staggeringly pretty wig, a wig in rich, solid, deeply convincing, faintly luminescsent auburn, a wig as expensive, as cozy & as well-designed as a limousine... When it curled lustrously about her neck & shoulders it behaved the way a woman's hair behaved in daydreams... The models were old women, and they looked the way that modern old women looked when they were in truly superb condition ... They showed none of the natural signs of human aging, but they were just a little crispy, a little taut. The models were solemn and sloe-eyed and dainty and extremely strong... Their clothes were decorative and columnar and slender hipped and without much in the way of a bustline... The clothes were splendidly cut... Rather ecclesiastical, rather bankerly, rather like the court dress of high-powered palace eunuchs from the Manchu Forbidden City... Well. I could go on, & probably would if I had a scanner, or was a better typist.... but you should be picking up the flavor of the book, the richness and density of invention. Sterling at his best reads something like a collaboration between Tom Wolfe & John McPhee. Folks, I've been reading this stuff for 40 years. and I'm hear to tell you, it don't get much better than this. Highly recommended. Review copyright 1996 by Peter D. Tillman

One of the best books I ever read. In the long run, the author poses to the readers a question that cannot have an unique answer: Above all, who's right, the young or the elder? We can say: obviously none, and both, it depends of your point of view. So what's the final answer?According to Sterling, the social role of the elder (the medically treated people, who live VERY long) is to mantain the status quo, to control the crazyness of the young, to *CONTROL* the society, by means of the fortunes and political strenght they accumulated. The young instead can 'follow the rules' or be repressed, and indeed the brighthest of them, the 'artists' (those who possess the 'Holy Fire', the capacity to *create* art and ideas) must hide and go in the underground. Here they try to add some new flesh to the human culture, and obviously the elder constantly try to stop them. But sometimes a new idea is good enough, and nothing can stop it, so it eventually becomes part of the status quo, along with their creators. Those same creators will then become elder with time, and will not allow any variation of this idea, acting effectively in the same way the elders of his young age did. The book goes through all this gradually, showing the elder, the young geniuses, and also the not-so-brilliant wannabe-genius youngsters. As Maya travels across Europe, she matures from an elder, to a newborn young, to a prominent figure in a underground movement. As always the reading is pure intellectual joy: Sterling's insights in the very nature of human culture, the differences between the old world and the new, the fantastic scenarios of future European cities and so much more.If you are searching pure action and special effects, you will not find them here. But if you want to *think* when reading a book, this is definitely a good choice.Worth every page.

This book has a lot of the trappings of science fiction-- life extending technology, genetically engineered pets, virtual reality games-- but the center, in the end, is the search for emotional completion engaged upon by Mia Ziemann, the protagonist of the book. Ziemann goes through a radical life extension procedure that pushes her past the life of the young and vivid and out the other side through to the Holy Fire. She embarks on a quest for completion that is not aided by hidden magical talents, destiny, or instant success. Instead, she becomes a person who can live her own life with will and sustained follow-through. Many things impressed me about this book, and I found it very hard to put down, but one of the things I liked the most was the high quality of the characters, and their very real emotional responses. I have some minor quibbles-- there were some loose ends in the book (I felt like the memory palace and the Plato sequences were never developed fully enough) but the book itself was strong enough to carry them. Definitely recommended.

Holy Fire is Sterling's best book and occupies a place on my small shelf of sf classics. The compelling hook is Mia's psychological journey in search of satisfying life, in both the physical and creative sense. The choices she makes lead to an explosively unstable mix of anguish and pleasure, horror and contentment. The book's structure is episodic, with little or no plotting (a quality Sterling himself has commented on). The descriptions of future technology are unfailingly inventive and convincing; I particularly enjoyed the "obsolete" computers which would be wondrous to the present age. A heroine with zest and adaptability, Mia is a sublimely bittersweet and engaging central character.