Queen City Jazz

Some things really do change. The ecology movement of the seventies expressed itself in commercials, school filmstrips and short science films that portrayed the killing effect of uncontrolled technology. Mountains scooped out by loud, diesel smoke-spewing machines; rivers covered in detergent foam and rotted fish; urban deserts of trash, rusting car chassis and bed springs; streets slimed with oil spots; beaches covered with tar and dead, blackened birds. Much of this hell has been redeemed. Cities have cleaner air. Rivers and lakes have been saved from death. The Clark Fork River here in Missoula shows few signs of the car metal and trash that lined its banks only two decades ago. Nevertheless, the large-scale trend continues. American lakes and rivers may be recovering, and its cities' air more breathable, but worldwide the effects of uncontrolled technology are worse than ever. The deterioration of the ozone layer, and the accumulation of greenhouse gases goes on - global phenomena that national borders do not constrain. Science fiction has functioned like the ecology movement, but instead of showing us what is, it shows us what might be if we continue on the way we are going. Reading "Queen City Jazz" by Kathleen Ann Goonan, ten years after its publication, I say to myself, "Well, things have changed, and this nightmare of nano-technology seems just that - a nightmare, an unreality that we have woken from, in part due to the book itself, and all efforts and communications like it that have steered us from the disasters depicted in their messages." The overarching tendency unfortunately remains. We don't hear much alarm regarding nano-technology currently, but genetic engineering and its "dreams" of cloning and tissue- and organ-production wiggle and waver on the edges of our sleeping, and stand front and center in our waking. Kathleen Ann Goonan blends together experiences bequeathed to us by the ecology movement - a land much cleansed of the plagues of industrial technology - with the fevered dreams and unbalanced waking of a biologically and genetically based technological sickness. The Ohio River and its tributaries with their earthen banks figure beautifully in the story. In the first chapter Goonan presents the land strong and good, and the central human character, Verity, the same. -She trod water for a minute...feeling the cool, pure pull of the depths of the river, wondering what it would be like to dive deep and never come up, but flow along the bottom in long, powerful surges and never take air again, but breathe only lovely, cool green water.- In the last chapter, the land and river live and abide: -Looking west, Verity could see where the rivers wove back into one...Everything looked so hazy, so wonderful. The Territory, pristine and bright, lay ahead of them, beckoning.- In this story, Verity brings the substance, the reality and life, spontaneity and plain obstinate earthiness, to a city diseased but not dying - a city caught i

After the first 150 pages I was entranced. Goonan wove such a wonderful backdrop. I wanted it to go on and on.Well, be careful what you wish for-- it does go on and on. Shakers pulled together by plague and fear, a city full of arts run by bees and flowers, a little girl with nodes behind her ears and a strange sense of destiny, a world gone nanotechnology mad where sick people flow like lemmings down the river. The ideas are exactly as magical and wonderful as they sound, but the plot is not able to live up to their weight. By the time Verity had been running around Cincinnati for a while, I was heartily sick of the whole thing and found there to be *way* too many pages to string out her secret. I would have far preferred that everything in the book happen (condensed) in the first half of an even longer book that took you some place beyond Cincinnati itself.I still plan to read the sequel.

This review is for both QUEEN CITY JAZZ and the sequel MISSISSIPPI BLUES, as I just read both back to back. Although both novels may to some people be too long, after having read them both I found them to contain excellent character development and also a great story. Both books center on nanotechnology, in the medium term future, and it's effects on the characters, and the country as a whole, very well done. Of course, if this doesn't appeal to you, read one of Arthur C. Clarke's outdated space operas. These two books are first class science fiction, with hard science thrown in, you won't find any fantasy here. I especially liked the morality and down to earth world views of the characters. Now we need another sequel.One final note, if you like hard science fiction, also read THE FIRST IMMORTAL by James Halperin, a very good book, also with nanotechnology thrown in.

Kathleen Ann Goonan's characterization and story building skills are intense, deep and spellbinding. I read this book REAL SLOW because I liked the prose and plot development so much. What a wonderful construct to wander in for the time spent reading it. I can't wait for the games, action figures and screensavers, let alone the sequel, Mississippi Blues.MMW

"Alice through art-deco buidings" follows a hidden map. Strong feminist character without 20th Century bagage. She meets interesting characters who define their own reality and provide "clues" to the meaning of it all in closer and closer approximations of the truth. Startlingly imaginative. Historical, pop-cultural, and musical references are crafted into the theme. A very good read for those not "in the know", but a better one for those who are. A chemical brew of pheremones and nanotechnology challenge purity and isolationism as a way of life. The hubris of some scientists, with thoughts of rigid control and predestination, are met head-on by an imperfect world. Why is jazz so prominent? What is the role of improvization in cultural development? What is the queen's role? Sacrifice and redemption beget evolution.