- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Voyager; (Reissue) edition (2 Dec 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0586207899
- ISBN-13: 978-0586207895
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.7 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 887,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Synopsis
Polar City is the capital of Hagar, one of the few worlds on which the tiny, human-dominated Republic sits, squeezed between the Interstellar Confederation and the enormous Coreward Alliance. When an alien from the Confederation Embassy is murdered, Police Chief Bates faces an explosive situation.
From the Back Cover
POLAR POLITICS
Polar city: capital of Hagar, one of a handful of worlds on which the tiny, human-dominated Republic sits, uneasily squeezed between the powerful Interstellar Confederation and the enormous Coreward Alliance.
When a suspected alien spy from the Confederation Embassy is found murdered, a potentially explosive political situation faces Police Chief Bates. And when talented psychic Mulligan is brought to the scene to pick up echoes of the event, what he experiences sends him into amnesiac shock.
Meanwhile, murders continue unabated and a major crisis threatens to destabilise the Republic…
POLAR CITY BLUES
is an immensely colourful and highly innovative science fiction first for Katharine Kerr. Cyberpunk, 'noir' thriller, otherworldly intrigue – all the elements are here in this fast-paced, action-packed, thought-provoking adventure.
"There's cops, there's drugrunners, there's whores and pimps…There's a weird bacterium, a lot of computer jockeying, and even more politics; there's detective work, social commentary and lots of action. It's a strong soup and a hell of a lot of fun. You should buy this one."
LOCUS
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Katherine Kerr is normally a fantasy writer but in Polar City Blues she makes a detour into hard SF, with considerable success and originality. Some great characters (not all human!) a generous slice of invention and some intellectually-sustained suspense all mixed together to make a reasonably good SF novel, not bad at all. It is perhaps a bit heavy-going at times: additionally it is written in the style of a 'cyberpunk' novel rather than being anything like, for instance, Arthur C.Clarke's more traditional SF. Nonetheless a good read for the most part.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book without knowing anything about the author or the book itself, because I happened to have just enough money for it (everything else in the shop cost £1 more!).
I've got to say, this isn't the easiest book in the world to read, it's not something I'd recommend even to sci-fi fans. Perhaps the most annoying thing about it is the constant use of the present tense, which sounds like a small thing but once you've read about 20 pages it starts to grate like a bear's claw on an old blackboard. I'm not even sure why Kerr did this, it certainly didn't add anything to the book. Perhaps it was just an attempt to be different purely for the sake of being different?
Other things that grated were the supposedly clever devices which just seemed far too obvious, for example in the future "Star Trek" will be regarded in the same way as classical literature apparently. Another was the swapping round of black people and white people, with white folks poor and persecuted. Never mind that this grossly oversimplifies the current situation, even as a stylised parable it's so unimaginative in its message that you wonder why Kerr bothered. Good moral parables get you to think, but this doesn't.
The main story is okay, the main characters are okay, but there's nothing about this book that made it particularly enjoyable to read. Maybe I'm missing the point somehow and would like it more if I was more familiar with Kerr's other works, but this is certainly not a suitable introduction to the author.
I've got to say, this isn't the easiest book in the world to read, it's not something I'd recommend even to sci-fi fans. Perhaps the most annoying thing about it is the constant use of the present tense, which sounds like a small thing but once you've read about 20 pages it starts to grate like a bear's claw on an old blackboard. I'm not even sure why Kerr did this, it certainly didn't add anything to the book. Perhaps it was just an attempt to be different purely for the sake of being different?
Other things that grated were the supposedly clever devices which just seemed far too obvious, for example in the future "Star Trek" will be regarded in the same way as classical literature apparently. Another was the swapping round of black people and white people, with white folks poor and persecuted. Never mind that this grossly oversimplifies the current situation, even as a stylised parable it's so unimaginative in its message that you wonder why Kerr bothered. Good moral parables get you to think, but this doesn't.
The main story is okay, the main characters are okay, but there's nothing about this book that made it particularly enjoyable to read. Maybe I'm missing the point somehow and would like it more if I was more familiar with Kerr's other works, but this is certainly not a suitable introduction to the author.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of the worst books I have ever read, I think the author should stick to fantasy and leave sci-fi well alone. Boring and clichéd.
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