Friday, June 21, 2019

Blackfish City, by Sam Miller Jr.

Blackfish CityBlackfish City by Sam J. Miller

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Overall I thought this was a pretty good story--lots of different speculative elements I enjoy. Qaanaaq (love the palindrome) is a really interesting take on climate change--some burst of technology and cooperation allowed for an anchored platform city of over a million people to grow near the arctic circle. It's very much an idea driven book, though toward the end the characters really start to grow and come through.

Like a lot of people I had trouble getting traction with the book. It's not exactly slow, it just didn't really grab me, and I found myself struggling to continue. About halfway through it came together. I really enjoyed Soc, the non-binary character, and the nanobonded woman Massaraq ended up it a tastily complex plot resolution.

I read in the question section that all of Miller's fiction is in a shared universe. That does make for a lot of rich possibility--he'll have a lot of material to draw from. I would definitely try him again.



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