Aristoi

Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams

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Walter Jon Williams is a very talented writer. In terms of invention and craft, he has been turning out novels that meet or exceed the quality of the greats of prior years, such as Asimov, Pohl, Heinlein, and Clarke. It is probably an indication of how far the major science fiction awards have fallen that he has not received scant attention.

Aristoi was published in 1992. I read it shortly after it was published, so this was my second reading after a lapse of thirty years. Incidentally, I picked up the Kindle version in 2012 knowing that some day it would provide me with a predictable source of engaging escapism. I had forgotten a lot of details, but some things stayed with me, such as Gabriel's explanation that the tango involved a sense of betrayal. I had forgotten this book was the source of that particular insight.

Aristoi is set several thousand years in the future. Earth was destroyed long ago in a technological accident involving nanotechnology. Humanity was experimenting with nanotechnology to work wonders, using atomic machines to build space ships and planets. Apparently, one form of nano mutated into “mataglap” and turned the Earth and everything on it into a frothing mass of wild nano.

All that remained was scattered outposts that formed a new society based on restricting nanotechnology and other dangerous science to the best and brightest of mankind, the Aristoi. These Aristoi rule domains of planets formed from their use of nano and gravity engineering. They are autocrats in their domain and permit other Aristoi - selected by a rigorously objective testing protocol - to rule as autocrats in their own domains. The Aristoi are cultured, refined, and civilized. They have created worlds of wealth and health for their populations, the Demos.

But there is a plot afoot, which the main character, Gabriel, an Aristoi draws to architecture and writing plays and poetry, becomes aware of. He follows the skein of the conspiracy from the virtual reality of the Aristoi to a barbaric world with technology on the level of the Middle Ages.

And then the fun begins.

Williams is inventive. The world of the Aristoi is well-drawn and complicated. He tosses off ideas the way that a drunken sailor tosses around money. He posits the oneichron - the virtual reality that allows Aristoi to communicate with each other even though separated by star systems - skiagnos - the forms assumed by the Aristoi in the oneichron - mataglap - the destructive nano that is a threat to all humanity - and daimones - the “limited personalities” that the Aristoi invent in their minds so that they can perform more than one task at a time.

The book is engaging. The plot is tightly constructed. The characters are well-drawn, albeit Gabriel, with his daimones, is the focal point of the story.

I was particularly impressed by the way that Williams could move his story from the highest of high-tech concepts down to a medieval world in the same story and that both could be believable and real and work together to tell a coherent story. It occurred to me as I was reading this story that he performed the same kind of trick in “Implied Spaces,” another truly great story that I'm saving for another day.