Reflection's Edge

Book Review: Worldwired, by Elizabeth Bear

Reviewer: Romie Stott

An asteroid has smashed into Earth, followed quickly by a spaceship full of alien-engineered nanomachines. Canada and China are on the brink of war. To make things worse, two sets of aliens have arrived to investigate - and nobody knows how to talk to them. Master Warrant Officer Jenny Casey has to testify before the United Nations, parley with the aliens, take care of her family, and help an AI based on Richard Feynman figure out how to reverse Earth's disastrous climate change. In situations like these, it helps to have a metal arm and super-fast reflexes - even if you're getting too old for adventuring.

Worldwired is the third in a trilogy. RE's reviews of the first two installments can be found here and here.

As the last book in a true trilogy, Worldwired is something we're not used to any more: denouement. Although it's full of spaceships, aliens, and artificial intelligence, it feels like a Greek tragedy, or the last act of a Shakespeare play - the important events have already been set in motion, and all that remains is the working out of their consequences. This may frustrate readers more accustomed to pacing which drives toward a climax; although there are a few action sequences left, they all grow out of reaction. Worldwired is a book about placing blame, picking up pieces, and embracing a new paradigm.

Consequently, Worldwired is less self-contained than Hammered or Scardown, and will be less approachable for new readers. A reader willing to work at it will still be able to enjoy reading Worldwired alone, but should be prepared for a large cast of characters and an Earth whose political - and physical - structure is dramatically different from the one we have now.

That said, both new and old series readers may want to skip the first 45 pages, which are more confusing than helpful. Bear succumbs briefly to Star Trek talking head syndrome with a crew of not-yet-differentiated scientist characters; to complicate matters, they are sometimes called by first names, sometimes last names, sometimes nicknames, sometimes specializations, and sometimes nationalities. Even with a cheat sheet, it can be hard to keep track of how many people are in a room. Fortunately the story picks up once characters split into easier-to-manage subgroups, especially since it means they start doing things instead of just talking about them.

Most of Worldwired is about attempts to find common ground - whether within a broken family, between countries on the brink of war, or with aliens so truly alien that humans may not be able to communicate. Bear excels at breaking world-altering political acts and military coups into personal ambitions, compromises, and politicians who are neither gods nor monsters; United Nations hearings are neatly balanced with bargains in men's rooms, hotel suites, and private telephone calls. The alien first-contact scenes are less nuanced and harder to identify with, but are a welcome contribution to a limited library of non-human intelligence concepts.

Artificial Intelligence consequently plays a larger role in Worldwired than in the earlier books; whether this is a good thing depends on how much you like the Richard Feynman AI construct. Richard is the common link throughout multiple storylines, providing advice, relaying messages, and occasionally acting as an omniscient author surrogate. Thanks to the nanomachines that have spread throughout the world, there's barely a page on which he isn't present - he's in computers, in the ground, even in most characters' heads. If you loved Richard in the other books, you'll love him now; if you hated him, you may be better off giving Worldwired a miss.

Surprisingly, Worldwired's strongest emotional pull comes not from Richard or from series protagonist Jenny Casey, but from teenage pilot Patricia Valens. We have all known young women who hold themselves to impossibly high standards, and it is both heartbreaking and familiar when Patty tells herself to be a perfect golden robot which never makes mistakes. Although many characters in Worldwired grieve, Patty is the only one inexperienced enough to let the grief deeply alter her.

Worldwired is a thinking person's book, almost more like a chess match than a traditional narrative. As the end of a cyperpunk series, it's heavy on cyber and short on punk. It's a hard book to love, but it's a hard book to replace - like the series as a whole, Worldwired falls outside any pre-established niche. Casual readers will find it a poor choice, but hardcore science fiction fans - especially those who read David Brin and Larry Niven - won't want to miss it.

To buy a copy of Worldwired, click here.

If you liked this book, you may also enjoy:

The Uplift Saga, by David Brin

Ringworld, by Larry Niven

Babylon 5, created by J. Michael Straczynski

Sphere, by Michael Crichton

The Abyss, directed by James Cameron



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