In the Drift [Hardcover]

`In the Drift' was Michael Swanwick's first novel, although some of the chapters previously appeared in print as short stories in SF magazines. `Drift' was one of a number of memorable books appearing in 1984/1985 as part of the third series of Ace Science Fiction Specials. It held its own as a debut novel in company that included Gibson's `Neuromancer', Shepard's `Green Eyes', and Robinson's `The Wild Shore'.

`Drift' takes place in an alternate future US, about 100 years after the March 1979 accident at the TMI-2 reactor at Three Mile Island, in Middletown, PA, went to full meltdown. The containment vessel exploded, spraying radioisotopes all over the eastern seaboard, and the reactor core was exposed to the atmosphere. The reactor caught fire and started burning; now hotter than the surface of Venus, it will spew isotopes into the air for the next 60,00 years. Middletown is a glowing-in-the-dark char pit devoid of life (save for radioresistant pond scum), and Central Pennsylvania is a contaminated wasteland peopled by outcasts and mutants.

Philadelphia becomes the largest city on the borders of the fallout zone (i.e, the `Drift'). Many of the city's beloved features survive the accident intact, such as blocks of burnt-out rowhouses, piles of uncollected garbage, and a general atmosphere of political corruption and urban squalor. In the nationwide breakdown of order resulting from the accident, the Mummers, a loose network of neighborhood organizations previously concerned with staging elaborate parades on New Years Day, have assumed leadership of the city government. The occasional mutant or monster gets born within the city's confines. But as anyone familiar with Eagles fans and their actions at home games can attest, excessive gamma radiation is hardly necessary to generate such unpleasant creatures.

The first two chapters of the book center on Keith Piotrowicz (pr. `petroVICH') , a callow young man and Philly resident. In `Mummer's Kiss' Keith, who drives a hazardous waste disposal truck on regular forays into the Drift, befriends Fletch, a journalist who has been traveling in the fallout zone and asking the wrong kinds of questions. When the Mummers learn of her investigations, Fletch and Keith are forced to flee for their lives into the Drift. `Kiss' is a well-crafted, exciting chase story.

The second chapter, `Nigger Night', revolves around an older and wiser Keith. He is assigned the job of resettling Drift refugees in a safe zone near present-day Carbondale. He is assisted by Sam, a mutant with the ability to visualize radioisotopes, and thus serves as a sort of human Geiger counter. The landscape and inhabitants of the Drift are effectively presented. There is a genuinely harrowing description of the TMI core that serves as one of book's most memorable passages. While less focused on action than the first chapter, `Night' generates an understated but effective pathos in its tale of outcasts searching for a new home in the fringes of the wastelands.

The third chapter, `Mutagen Fair', is essentially a brief horror story involving Vicky, a little girl who comes face to face with the brutish consequences of the struggle for survival within the confines of the Drift.

The final chapter, `Marrow Death', takes place several decades after the others. A reporter ventures into the Drift to investigate a conflict between the Drifters, represented by Vicky, and Keith Piotrowicz, representing the Mummers, over the future of the region's coal resources. Serving to bring all the characters from the previous chapters into one finale revolving around the fate of the Drift and its inhabitants, the chapter sets a tone of moral ambiguity and ends on a rather disturbing note.

Swanwick's output since `Drift' (i.e., Vacuum Flowers, The Iron Dragon's Daughter, and Bones of the Earth)has been a bit (some may argue) uneven. But this work is well-crafted and highly readable and remains one of the best of the novels making their debut in the Science Fiction Specials.

This is a fast read and very easy to understand, but, contrary to my sci-fi class's belief, I consider it mind candy. The futuristic ideas seem well thought out and almost plausible, but as for the actual details, it seems like Swanwick had a little TOO much fun with it. The details of sex between the mutated creatures was repulsive to say the least, and it kept me from taking the book seriously. It's almost pure fluff... Like combining a romance novel and an old black and white "horror" movie. This can be good or bad, depending on the type of science fiction a reader enjoys.

If you are from Philadelphia, or know anything about Philly, read this book! If you were here during the TMI crisis, believe me, you will get it. But I guess I can understand people from out of town not understanding what it is all about. Its about the Mummers, stupid! No other books that I know of so adequately takes the Philadelphia proletarian New Years holiday and projects it into an alternative radioactive present. It is the Kiss of the Killer Mummers. Glue some feathers to your Geiger Counter! Mummer up your plastic booties! Oh! Dem Golden Slippers, indeed!