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Holy Fire (Paperback)

by Bruce Sterling (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (3 Mar 1997)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1857998847
  • ISBN-13: 978-1857998849
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 126,516 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #5 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > S > Sterling, Bruce

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Product Description

Product Description

A chance encouter with a twenty year old turns 93 year old Mia into twenty year old Maya - and sends her to a Prague bursting with creative energy, to a society of artists and artisans filled with the 'holy fire'. A new life as a photographer beckons, but is Maya/Mia just too old and wise to care about art for art's sake.


About the Author

Bruce Sterling burst onto the sf scene with the birth of Cyberpunk and co-authored THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE with his colleague William Gibson. His biggest UK success was with THE HACKER CRACKDOWN. He lives with his wife and daughters in Austin, Texas.
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece of characterisation, 26 Sep 2000
By J. Hind "John Hind" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
If Margaret Atwood had written this book it would have won literary prizes all over the world. Sadly, Sterling is not one of the select few authors licensed to write science fiction and have it still count as literature.

Most of all, this book is a tour de force of characterisation - we are treated to an utterly convincing hybrid between the emotional intelligence of a successful career woman with ninety years life experience and the appetite for life and experimentation of a twenty year old. But can the 'holy fire' of artistic inspiration touch such a post-human creature?

Sterling creates an utterly convincing near-future world for Mia/Maya to inhabit. The central idea is that medical science is advancing at a pace that is extending average useful lifespan by more than one year every year. The world has become a gerontocracy run by an elite, which without actually being immortal, does not die or retire. It is a safe, sane and comfortable world, but the young are marginalized and robbed of a future, being unable to compete with the experience and accumulated capital of the previous generation.

Mia Ziemann, bored, jaded and lonely, is reminded of an opportunity she lacked the courage to take in her youth. She decides to liquidate her considerable assets to buy a new and experimental treatment that promises to rejuvenate the mind as well as the body.

I am not a great fan of Sterling's work in general, but this is a masterpiece.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular., 17 Sep 2001
By A Customer
Fantastic stuff from Sterling; moving, beautifully written, full of believable 'post-human' characters, and above all wonderfully strange. A 'real novel' for those genre-snobs out there who think SF is all space-opera.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and thought-provoking vision of the future, 16 Mar 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Holy Fire (Bantam Spectra Book) (Paperback)
This book is about inter-railing in the year 2095. How cool is that? You travel around futuristic Europe, and see strange and magical places, and meet fascinating characters. The book is also about what might happen if medical advances allowed eternal life. It asks how human society would change if death was eradicated, and it makes you wonder whether eternal life would really ve a good thing. The characters have the minds of old people in the bodies of the young, and are all bored and listless. But then hope is created in the form of a new technique that rejuvenates the mind, not just the body. This is an extremely intelligent and exciting book, and I found it profoundly moving. Give it a try.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Good science, less good fiction
The speculation about a gerontocracy, life extension and its implications for what it means to be human and for society worked well. Read more
Published on 20 April 2003 by Robert Lauder

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
In a time when SF seems to be consuming itself and producing quirky little pieces of retro nostalgia or clever variations on exhausted themes Holy Fire manages to be an insightful... Read more
Published on 19 Dec 2002 by Arthur Wyatt

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