The Artificial Kid, Bruce Sterling
The Artificial Kid, Bruce Sterling
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The Artificial Kid

Author: Bruce Sterling

Narrator: Fajer Al-Kaisi

Unabridged: 9 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/17/2020

Synopsis

In a future world of rampant inequality, a martial-arts video star finds himself in a real fight for survival, in this novel by the author of Schismatrix.Founded centuries ago by the enigmatic genius Moses Moses, the planet Reverie can either be heaven or hell, depending on whether you live on or above it. The superrich orbit the world in luxury abodes, keeping their sometimes-lethal ennui at bay by watching homemade sex and violence videos created by the peons dwelling on the coral continents miles beneath them. The most popular entertainer of all is the Artificial Kid, an unbeatable combat artist whose bloody, self-produced martial arts videos have made him beloved both above and below. But the Kid is about to stumble onto something no one was ever meant to discover—a mind-boggling conspiracy of science and antiquity that forces him to run for his life into the strange and dangerous wilderness known as the Mass. And when Moses returns to Reverie after seven hundred years of cryogenic sleep, things are about to get much worse.Written long before the era of YouTube, Ultimate Fighting, and reality TV, Bruce Sterling’s prescient, thoughtful, and wildly satiric novel previews the nascent cyberpunk sensibilities of the acclaimed author’s later works.

About Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling is an Austin-born science fiction writer and Net critic, internationally recognized as a cyberspace theorist who is also considered one of the forefathers of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction. He has won a John W. Campbell Award, two Hugo Awards, and an Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Edith

Ha sido una lectura grata, aunque no una maravilla, pero la he disfrutado, más en algunas partes que en otras. Entre ellas, la primera que me encantó, el capítulo donde Moses, Arti y Santa Ana relatan su vida. La segunda, cuando se encuentran otro personaje y realizan descubrimientos importantes. Esa......more

Goodreads review by Olethros

-El Derek Zoolander de los gladiadores futuristas-. Género. Ciencia-Ficción. Lo que nos cuenta. Hace ya bastantes años, Rominuald Tanglin, Primer Secretario de Gobierno de Niwlind, emigró al planeta Reveria y traslado parte de su conciencia a un nuevo cuerpo, el Chico Artificial, que tiempo después se......more

Goodreads review by Anca

I read this book first as a teenager (along with Involution Ocean) and it really made an impact on my thinking about youth, age, fame, and society. I read it again about 10 years ago, when I came across a copy at a used book store, and again a couple of weeks ago after I loaned it to someone else (w......more

Goodreads review by Brian

This is a book where the fantastic early bits outweigh the ending; but, many years after I read it the first time, the middle has become much more relevant. So, to start: The setting is the planet Reverie, a rich world where the most popular entertainment involves people staging fights for the ever......more

Goodreads review by Travis

Very much an interstitial work - not so much one of the first cyberpunk novels but one of the last of the New Wave. Still, it has plenty of the trappings that would later be core to C-Punk: corporate dominance, body modification, rampant drug use, and a surprisingly prescient take on what is only no......more

Quotes

“The Artificial Kid is a work of satirical social commentary with the breakneck pace of a Hong Kong action film.” —Amazon.com“If you want a look at what the future might really be like, read Sterling.” —Gardner Dozois“Sterling is a writer of excellent fineness. In point of fact, I am somewhat awed by his abilities.” —Harlan Ellison

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