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Queen City Jazz (Paperback)

by Kathleen Ann Goonan (Author) "John was blue, steady as the blue light far down the abandoned maglev track; Verity and Cairo had walked down it one spring day when..." (more)
3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 465 pages
  • Publisher: Voyager (16 Nov 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0006483178
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006483175
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 749,510 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #4 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > G > Goonan, Kathleen Ann
  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
Kathleen Ann Goonan's first novel is an impressive sci-fi debut, combining the themes of post-holocaust America and rampant nanotechnology. This imagined technology of molecule-sized machines and computers has excited many science fiction writers with its possibilities for total control of matter, atom by atom--including human flesh and DNA. In Goonan's future America, cities brought to life with nanotechnology or "nan" have mutated in strange, threatening ways. Rural areas, meanwhile, were devastated by nan-based plagues. Our heroine Verity, raised by a rustic Shaker community that rejects most technology, feels a mysterious compulsion towards learning machines and the closest transformed city. This is Cincinnati, whose skyscrapers have blossomed into exotic nan flowers between which huge artificial bees carry pollinating information. Verity's adventures there are complex, flickering between real-life action, virtual reality and chemically induced all-senses hallucinations. Eventually--the old, old sci-fi story--Verity realises that she herself was created to redeem the malfunctioning city. Its inhabitants are trapped in pleasant but futile cycles of dreams and play-acting (living the roles of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and others): Verity must somehow free them. Well written and colourfully imagined, the story requires close attention to thread its maze of realities and unrealities. --David Langford

Synopsis
A novel of nanotechnology. The heroine's quest to save her friend's life in the Enlivened City (Cincinatti) is transformed by the City itself into a story of discovery and revelation.

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John was blue, steady as the blue light far down the abandoned maglev track; Verity and Cairo had walked down it one spring day when Verity was only ten though she was forbidden by Evangeline. Read the first page
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2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Dents in the wall, 7 Mar 2003
By M. J. Farncombe "m_farncombe" (Guildford UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
I have to say that the last few chapters might rank amongst the finest literature ever written, but I'll probably never know. I loved the beginning, as a girl reaches adulthood among a pastoral community of neo-Shakers. I admired the second section, as she is driven to leave the community and travel to the nano-corrupted city. But I hated the third section, as she enters and starts to interact with the living city.

Sure, intelligent cities and nano-engineering will produce societies radically different from today, but the protagonist's journey through the city is lost in its own cleverness and lazily written to boot. I've tried, I've really tried to read this, but each time I get to that last section I end up flinging the book angrily at the wall (OK, so I should switch to decaf).

This could have been a wonderful book with a more aggressive editor, but it ain't. If you finish it and liked it, email to tell me how it ends - I can't afford the wall repairs.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, evocative book, 29 Aug 2001
By A Customer
I thought this book was rather wonderful. I don't usually read proper sci-fi, as I don't get all the techie stuff, but in this book the prose itself, with it's beautiful descriptions, conveyed an otherwordly feel brilliantly. The writing, particularly the description of Verity's intial home and then moonlit, flower-filled nights of Cincinatti, were strong enough to carry me through all the pheromones and nanotechnology stuff.

The book is set some years in the future in a radically changed USA. The magical strangeness of this place is all the more effective because of the air of psuedo normality at the beginning. As the novel progresses the degree to which everything is different is revealed.

The causes of these cataclysmic alterations are a nice varitation on more standard "how the earth ended up being dead werid" fare and the story of how things happened is worked in seamlessly.

If you like evocative writing or interesting sci-fi, then I really recommend this book. The only reason for 4 stars instead or 5 is that I have to confess to not actually understanding much of the ending, which does get a bit bizzare.

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