Aristoi (novel)
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Cover of first edition (hardcover)
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| Author | Walter Jon Williams |
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| Cover artist | Jim Burns |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Tor Books |
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Publication date
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1992 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 448 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 26158330 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3573.I456213 A89 1992 |
Aristoi is a 1992 science fiction novel by American writer Walter Jon Williams. It was one of the preliminary candidates for the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel in a particularly competitive year (only the second year in the award's history in which there was a tie). The cover art for Aristoi was nominated for the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Original Artwork.
The novel describes the Logarchy, a technologically advanced human society which has spread across half the galaxy. It involves a rigid hierarchy of social classes, based on examinations. The supreme class, the "Aristoi", are given the ultimate responsibility: that of managing nanotechnology.
The Aristoi (and some others) can split their minds into daimones, or "limited personalities", all which can operate as independent mental entities guided by the will of the main 'self' of the Aristos. There are several rituals designed to bring the main personality into contact with his own daimones and establish organization and control among them. In virtual reality, deployed through an implanted brain-computer interface, these selves can even be manifested as distinct individuals. The daimones can work on various projects independently without using the body, so that many things can be accomplished in a fraction of the time it would take a singleminded person to do them.
Williams frequently divides the text into two columns representing characters' simultaneous interactions with multiple daimones and/or outside persons (for example, events of a party on one side, Gabriel's daimones commenting amongst themselves on the other). People who have daimones are not considered to be out of their minds, but rather into their minds, and are respected as knowing themselves much more thoroughly than is possible to a singleminded person.
Virtual reality is referred to as "oneirochronon", a Greek-rooted word literally meaning "dream time". The "Hyperlogos" stores all human knowledge on gigantic servers placed inside Earth's moon and the moons of other planets. The device used for the interface is a tiny implant called a "reno", suggesting a link to Williams' earlier cyberpunk novels Hardwired and Solip:System which deal with a near-future Earth.
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