The novel “Aristoi” by Walter Jon Williams was published for the first time in 1992.

Gabriel is an Aristos engaged above all in the fields of architecture and music running various planets whose activity is focused on the arts. He is helped by various dáimones, limited personalities who deal with specific activities. Not all the Aristoi are satisfied with the situation and some of them would like to return to the adventurous past that forged their society, but Gabriel is part of the majority who believe that such a past was too chaotic and dangerous.

When Cressida, an Aristos who works in the science field, discovers that someone violated the Hyperlogos, which contains all the knowledge of the Logarchy, she investigates and discovers that something very strange is happening in an area of ​​space that’s supposed to have been devastated by a supernova. She confides in Gabriel, the Aristos closest to that area, just before she gets killed in the destruction of her laboratory. Gabriel, convinced that it wasn’t an accident, realizes that he must investigate in secret a possible threat to the entire Logarchy.

The Aristoi were the nobles of ancient Greece, originally an aristocracy determined by birth but in some cases later reformed, as in Athens. The term Aristoi means “best”, and Walter Jon Williams reprises it with other Greek terms, sometimes adapted to a society of a distant future, with a humanity scattered among the stars after a catastrophe led to the destruction of the Earth. These future Aristoi must meritocratically conquer a rank that entails great powers, but also be at the service of humanity.

The construction of this future society and in particular of the Aristoi is very thorough by Walter Jon Williams, to the point that the first part of the novel is a great introduction that allows to show its complexity given by the use of advanced technologies. It’s a society that represents an attempt to build a utopia and at the same time shows the limits of the choices made by the Aristoi. The available technologies give the idea of ​​a possible transhumanist utopia, yet there’s a hierarchy, even if everyone has the opportunity to rise within it. Meritocracy allows anyone to become an Aristos, and yet the Aristoi are revered as deities by common people.

The many centuries that passed since the creation of that society brought enormous power into the hands of the Aristoi, who manage technologies that are more developed than those that caused the destruction of the Earth. Walter Jon Williams offers information here and there on that past to stress what responsibilities the Aristoi have towards humanity. In theory, the structure of the Logarchy ensures transparency, but the Aristoi, despite their neural implants, remain human and far from perfect with their emotions and desires, leaving open the possibility of abuse.

Among the Aristoi there are disagreements on the policy regarding humanity’s expansion, which for some of them has been regulated too rigidly. The possibility of an Aristos carrying out forbidden research seems absurd, yet that’s what Cressida suspects and even more Gabriel after Cressidda’s death. Gabriel’s investigation accelerates the novel’s pace, initially slow, for an intrigue that sometimes becomes brutal in the developments that take place in the second half of the story.

The fictional universe of “Aristoi” is rich, but for this reason also complex. It’s a case in which the worldbuilding by the author represents an important part of the novel, but that means that the reader must appreciate this type of narrative. Sometimes the story can be difficult to follow because one or more dáimones who assist Gabriel are involved and the author uses a narrative split into two columns to give an idea of ​​the multiple communication that takes place in his mind.

I found intriguing Walter Jon Williams’s construction of a society in a phase when humans are trying to overcome the weaknesses of their past, but are still anchored to human limits with the consequences that are explored in the novel. If you’re ready for a journey that partly takes place in these future humans’ minds by combining hard and humanistic science fiction, “Aristoi” is the book for you.