Artificial Kid

Artificial Kid is the second novel by Bruce Sterling. Written in 1980, the book is over the top and satirical, reminding me of the kung foo 80s films. The book's protagonist is a young clone, artificially born at an adult age. He's a big action star. He's a combat artist, where people fight on film, and people pay to watch. One of the Orwellian concepts Sterling uses is the idea of a constant surveillance state. In the world of Artificial Kid everyone films themselves doing everything: eating with friends at dinner, having sex, combat art, the works. All the plutocrats of this society used them constantly. The social structure of the society highly stratified. However, with Kid being a pop star combat artist, owning 4 shares of stock, he was super rich, and famous despite being young. This is something of a cyberpunk novel, as there are some pretty advanced technology.
But then bad things happen to Kid. This guy calls a blood feud on him, wipes Kids' maids mind [akin to murder], and has some goons beat him to a bloody pulp. Barely surviving, Kid and his entourage start living on the run. They find themselves getting blown up on a ship from another enemy sent by Angeluce, who's part of the Cabal, the society that controls the planet.

Moses Moses, Saint Anne-Twiceborn, and Kid end up swimming for hours and hours, only to somehow land upon a flying island. On the island kid miraculously finds his mentor, a scientist. They each take turns telling their personal story, as they might be about to die at any time. They were being hunted by Angeluce, because they knew about Moses Moses, who was out of cryosleep, and was apart of the original government some 300 years ago. Yes, none of this makes sense. 

Although none of the middle and ending sections have too much action, this section where the characters tell their own stories is where Sterling shines at creating a character, even if we have to use a bit of suspension of belief. Saint Anne really comes off as a true loving woman and Kid realizes this. Moses Moses' story about how the world and government of Reverid came to be is fascinating, as it works as exposition for the world. 

The story isn't executed nearly as well as the ideas themselves. Perhaps the outcome of a sophomore slump? I've read a lot of short reviews for Artificial Kid and reviews seem to be mixed. I think the novel is terrific. The plot is all over the place but I think the the characters were well written and the ending is quite nice.

Kid grows up as the story progresses. He starts off as an arrogant, drug addled, violent brute that smashes people with nunchucks, but in the end he turns into a loving guy and reciprocates the love of Saint Anne. Kid and Saint Anne raise Quade, the maid who got mind-wiped, up as a kid. But here we see that Kid gives up the combat artist lifestyle, and ends the novel living in peace with Saint Anne and Quade, on an island, his old mentor's house. Kid goes through an odyssey of his own to find out what the really important things are in life. There's even an alien eating a human head.

There are lots of novels with the theme used here. Candide comes to mind. The satirical aspects are strong here. The characters use 80s arcade slang and made-up slang jargon as well like, "Oh wau, holy death!" stuff like that. The gore described herein is pretty hardcore. At one point Kid kills a man for the first time and he ends up ripping up his skull, with grisly details. There is a science, technology, philosophy, and sociological intensity to the extensive dialogue of the characters and that's where the reader learns more and more, getting caught on turns of plot. I think that this is still a strong book from Sterling, and I've read a few of his books now so I can see where he's made his leaps and changes in writing.  

I do think that the plot could have been written in a more elegant or smooth style. But I think rather than rely on plot Sterling used a lot of dialogue for the reader to learn more about the history and lore of the utopia/dystopia planet, as well as the backgrounds of each of the main characters. It worked, for me. I would even be interested to read this again at some point.  As you can see from my list below of all the other Bruce Sterling books, I've read a lot of Sterling's work. I've even read his first novel Involution Ocean, a science fiction Moby Dick. I would say there's a good evolution from 1980 Artificial Kid Sterling to 1985 Schismatrix Plus Sterling. All great stuff relatively speaking, and definitely worth reading.

On a side note I couldn't find any good reviews for Artificial Kid on a google search. So that's why I decided to write my own. Sterling gets props for imagining a world everybody is constantly being watched by their own cameras. Its like he could see to the age of postmodernism where people enjoy watching Keeping up with the Kardashians and other reality TV popcorn bubblegum. Its an old trope for the state of a brutal regime, but its actually come to pass. Sometimes its good to turn off the cameras.

Check out my other Bruce Sterling novel reviews
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2018/12/holy-fire.html
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/01/zeitgeist.html
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/01/schismatrix-plus.
https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-difference-engine.html