Way ahead of its time - but can't really recommend

For anyone interested in historic sci-fi, or for how amazing and promising genetic-engineering seemed back around 1980, this may be an interesting read. Credit where its due: At least one aspect of the technological/social world in this book is jaw-droppingly prescient (and isn't related to biochemistry). A second one is decades ahead of its time.
However, I cannot recommend it as a good read. The plot structure, (most of) the world-building, the delivery, are underwhelming and let the great ideas down. A lot of the time, things are told (by characters, in monologues), not shown. I finished the audiobook - but can't say I enjoyed it as such.

I do enjoy old sci-fi, and I have no problem with living in a future that has way surpassed what an author imagined fifty years or so ago. And this one imagined something that is very real, very today. Just the plot that its packaged in, the narrative as a whole, underwhelmed and disappointed. Only in retrospect do two particular aspects of the novel stand out as bright as they should.
One does involve a linguistic choice that just kept rubbing me very wrongly. But that is because of who, these days, uses the specific words, not because of what the author here did with them.

CAUTION Trigger Warning and spoilers below

TRIGGER WARNING: a character who does not fit the traditional binary is referred to as "the" and "it". While this is something that transphobes do today, in this 1980 novel, it is NOT used in a transphobic manner. See first item in the spoilers.

Details: a (prominent) character is described as a "neuter" (due to being a clone), having been assigned non-gender at birth. It is explicitly made clear that "the/it" are its preferred pronouns. While that term isn't itself used, that preference is stated explicitly, and having such in a novel first published in 1980 seems way, way, way ahead of its time. It is not even a critically important piece of the narrative - its just part of the landscape, a prominent character not using traditional male or female pronouns is treated as entirely normal and mostly unremarkable.
It just unfortunate that in recent years, very public, very visible transphobes use "the/it" to talk about trans people who's gender, and sometimes outright humanity, the phobe refuses to acknowledge. The latter being why, to me, that use of "the/it" was jarring, right to the end.

Now, on to other aspects of the book.

One piece of world-building stood out, was well done. By not standing out. Shown, not told (much). And it's more jaw dropping the more I think about it.
Mr. Sterling invented youtubers in 1980.
Video is recorded on tapes, physical tapes are distributed, fresh tapes should be used to record anything important (implying analog video...), and the content is put out through what appears to be TV. So far for the anachronisms.
Apart from that, it's spot on. Characters have a flock of cameras floating around them, "making tapes" constantly, producing content for their followers, and apart from getting to do far more bloody violence than the youtubes allow, they are youtubers.
Video even is distributed to the public through "channels". TV is implied, but I just imagined youtube, and the shoe fits.
Refreshing: rather than characters just making videos that are amazing, the critical efforts of a talented editor and the editing process are brought up repeatedly. When the "tapes" of one character spark a revolution, it is because a very talented editor got her hands on them first.
The more I think about it, the more I feel Mr. Sterling's residence should be searched for the time machine he's hiding.

The great technological/scientific difference to today (or to 1980, as it were) that is explicitly central to the world Sterling builds here is not electronic, but biochemical. Manipulation of DNA, RNA, very busy microorganisms, very odd microorganisms (it's an alien world full of alien lifeforms, after all), a very alien biome the characters find themselves in once they must flee from civilization.
The physical body can be made immortal - but the price of immortality is having one's memories and personality removed when centuries of memories just get too much for the mind to handle. Memories are, in this world, biochemical, expressed as RNA, and can even be transferred from one person to another.
While the ideas are fascinating, as are the implications that are explored, those are let down by underwhelming world-building. Characters telling, rather than the author showing, events seeming contrived, and unnecessary to the plot.

This affects the world building and plot beyond the futuristic ideas, too.
Critical events happen "elsewhere" and "elsewhen", and are related by characters describing them in long monologues. Again, telling, not showing.
There really seemed to be a lot of one character or another giving a big speech to explain some aspect of the world the story is set in, how the future society is supposed to work, or the workings of alien microbiology.
Some plot elements seem a little bit convenient (if not contrived outright), and at least one character's arc kinda petered out, and the character himself sorta drifts away out of the story and is gone.

Sie haben diese Rezension bewertet.

Wir haben Ihre Meldung erhalten und werden die Rezension prüfen.