In Sterling's late 21st century, advances in cybernetics, nano- and virtual technology and medicine have transformed Earth into a near paradise. Humanity's ancient dream of immortality is on the verge of becoming reality in the challenging new novel from erstwhile William Gibson (see below) collaborator Sterling (Heavy Weather, 1994, etc.). “The future Sterling traces is plausible and provocative, particularly his consideration of several contrasting cultures, and of the disenfranchised who are unable to become ‘post-human.’ Those interested in serious speculative conversation set within a very strange near-future will find this much to their taste.” - Publishers Weekly “A patented Sterling extra-special.” - Newsday “An intellectual feat, it is also a treat for the spirit and the senses.” - Wired Holy Fire may very well be best work.” - Speculiction In the end, Holy Fire is one of the most interesting, imaginative, and subtly humorous-and relevant for it-novels the cyberpunk/post-human era has produced. . . . Art, artifice, the pursuit of immortality, and youth and aging bounce around the story, the characters, and their conversations in imaginative, engaging fashion. . . . “Ideas-big ideas-lurk beneath Mia’s romp through Sterling’s delightfully imagined newly post-human Earth. After her dramatic transformation, Mia finds herself lost in an avant-garde world of passion, designer drugs, and creative expression . . . In this futuristic paradise, ninety-four-year-old Mia Ziemann longs for something different and undergoes a radical new treatment that restores both her body and mind to that of a twenty-year-old. Existence itself has become relatively easy-if boring. In the late twenty-first century, technology has lengthened lifespans far beyond what was once medically possible. Memory, morality, and immortality merge in this “haunting and lyrical triumph” from the bestselling author of Schismatrix Plus ( Time).

Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling