The Caryatids

June 28th, 2010
books, sf
I just finished reading The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling. I don't normally write about books I've read, but this one really bothered me. It made me feel somewhat cheated. The book sets up a very interesting future world with complex characters, problems, and political factions, but then it doesn't really do anything with it. The whole book has the feel of a rather long series of introductor chapters telling us how the world has become messed up, who the people trying to put it back together are, and how those people interact with each other. Gargh.

I wish sterling would take part one, the part about vera and miljet, throw away everything that came after it, and write a story that has a plot.

Comment via: facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Retrospective on life tracking and effectiveness systems

I’ve been doing life tracking for around 10 years, and this post is looking back at some things I learned from the data (since my previous retrospective in 2017). I also review various productivity / effectiveness systems I have tried and which ones have …

via Victoria Krakovna July 4, 2025

Linkpost for June

Effective altruism, policy, social justice, reality's surprising amount of detail, short stories

via Thing of Things July 2, 2025

Elixir's Last Dance

On May 18th, the contra dance band Elixir had their last gig ever. The dance was packed: there were three hundred people. It was the only dance BIDA has ever done where they sold tickets. People flew from across the country just to hear Elixir play one la…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts June 5, 2025

more     (via openring)