I’ve read a few reviews of this book (which I don’t tend to do unless I really love or really hate a book) and most were glowing but a few were more grounded. It’s possible that I didn’t read far enough to see what makes this book something that deserves what appears to be almost universal approval, but I’m going to tell you what I thought of it anyway. I put down Holy Fire (about five sevenths of the way through). Poginant, lyrical, humorous, and often shocking, Holy Fire offers a hard unsparing look into a world that could become our own.I very rarely put down a book before I finish it, but when I do it’s usually a book that I’ve been reading for more than a month at a rate of just a few pages a day only at times when I have a choice between reading the book or doing absolutely nothing.

Memory, science, politics, and the meaning of death. In Holy Fire, Bruce Sterling once again creates a unique and provocative future that deals with such timeless topics of the human condition as love, Worst of all, Mia will have to undergo one last radical procedure that could cost her a second life. She joins a group of outlaw anarchists whose leader may be the man of her dreams.or her undoing. Hitching a ride on a plane to Europe, Mia sets out on a wild intercontinental quest in search of spiritual gratification, erotic revelation, and the thing she missed most of all: the holy fire of the creative experience. The procedure is not without risk and her second chance at life will not come without a price. But first she must submit herself to a radical-and painful-experimental procedure which She has lived her life with such caution that it has been totally bereft of But a deathbed visit with a long-ago ex-lover and a chance meeting with a young bohemian dress-designer brings Mia to an awful revelation. Mia Ziemann is a 94-year-old medical economist who enjoys all the benefits of her position. Meanwhile, the young live on the fringes of society, ekeing out a meagre survival on free, government-issued rations and a black market in stolen technological gadgetry from an earlier, less sophisticated age. Power is in the hands of conservative senior citizens who have watched their health and capital investments with equal care, gaining access to the latest advancements in life-extension technology. It is a world of synthetic memory drugs, benevolent government surveillance, underground anarchists, and talking canine companions. The 21st century is coming to a close, and the medical industrial complex dominates the world economy.

Holy fire sterling