The 1990s was an important decade
for science-fiction—it saw the rise of the postcyberpunk movement and also the
beginning of the near endless obsession with dystopian science-fiction. While
dystopian sci-fi wasn’t new in the 90s, it did begin to become much more
prominent in the award-winning or nominated books such as Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, Octavia Butler’s Parable novels, Maureen F.
McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang, and
Nancy Kress’s Beggars in Spain. There
was, however, more to the 90s than this—this was the decade that gave rise to
the nanopunk movement, spearheaded by such acclaimed authors as Linda Nagata and
our subject today: Kathleen Ann Goonan.
Ms. Goonan had already made a
name for herself with her short fiction writing, but it was the publication of
her first novel, Queen City Jazz,
that made her a science-fiction mainstay. Her books have been nominated for (or,
in the case of In War Times, won) the Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award,
and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. This review in particular is about her
acclaimed first effort, Queen City Jazz.
The novel is an interesting and
highly ambitious experiment. Set in a post-apocalyptic future where nanotechnology
has developed enough to literally regrow things (called “bionan”) which led to
population-decimating plagues, it features such prominent elements as music
(jazz, unsurprisingly), complex scientific theories, bees (or Bees, more accurately),
and a city setting. Yet at its heart, Queen
City Jazz is a story about people—how they interact with each other, their
love and appreciation for art, how they long to improve themselves and the
world around them.
In the novel, there are two
conflicting perspectives on technology and the future, as exemplified by our
protagonist, Verity: to close oneself off from technology, embrace religion,
and remain celibate; or to embrace nanotech with ethical uses, have a secular
humanist perspective, and be a sex-positive feminist sort. If you’re at all
familiar with Goonan, you’ll know her own view is the latter, but this is no one-dimensional
Sherri Tepper tract. Instead, Verity comes to decide her worldview through a long,
hard-wrought journey and self-reflection. Kathleen Goonan also writes a very
multi-layered story, one of love, of failure, and of putting things back
together, both for oneself and for humanity as a whole. I won’t spoil it, but
the plot is complicated and is more satisfying to be discovered on ones own.
Writing-wise, Goonan is solid. I
did find it irritating how she constantly had Verity or another character ask a
question with it saying, “she asked” or “he asked.” This is unnecessary in
almost every use due to most conversations in the novel only containing two
people. Otherwise her prose is bright and descriptive, and for the most part, she
avoided being too adverb-happy. I can say, though, that she improved immensely
in her other novels, even just by her vastly underrated second effort, The Bones of Time.
In terms of characters, I liked
just about everyone. Verity is the sort of protagonist I’ve been missing from
modern sci-fi—she’s tough and refuses to sit by and let people keep her in the
dark, solves her problems by herself, and forms complex and meaningful
relationships with those around her. And, despite being a teenager, romantic love does not consume her as a character. There is a minor relationship for her, but it's a very small element of the novel. Sphere was far more interesting than I’d
expected when he first appeared; far from being the Magical Negro I feared when
he turned out to be the only black character in the novel with good
screen-time, he was a multi-layered and three-dimensional character. While his
story helped Verity’s, he had his own life and motivation for helping her.
Blaze may not have been in the novel very much, but I sure did sympathize with him.
And in terms of Abe—all I can say is, Kathleen Goonan made me both love and
hate the guy at the same time.
In terms of flaws, the novel took
a long time to truly get to the most interesting moments. While character
driven stories often have slow pacing, I gave up on the book several times
before finally reaching the point where the pace sped up again, and found it
almost as engrossing as it was for the first seventy pages. Also, I wish she’d
explained why there didn’t seem to be that much diversity in the city—I suppose
since the city was “designed” to be a certain way it can be excused, but since
there didn’t seem to be that many people, even in the background of the
narrative, who didn’t seem to fit the designation of “white or western European”
or “black.” Outside of one or two characters, no one was (at least implied to be, based on unfortunate references to "slanted eyes") Asian-American.
Hopefully in the other books we’ll get some notice over what happened to the
Native American reservations. Also, I didn't see anyone in the novel anywhere on the LGBTQIA spectrum. This unfortunately is often common in Ms. Goonan's work.
In summary, Queen City Jazz is a good first effort that holds up pretty well
considering over twenty years have passed since its release. With charming
characters, beautiful prose, and a complex and unique plot, it manages to
overcome its flaws and captivate the reader. In many ways, with its teenage girl protagonist and coming-of-age theme, it succeeds more as a young adult science-fiction novel than many modern examples of young adult sci-fi. I'd recommend it to folks 15 and up.
Score: 4/5
