James Nicoll Reviews

1991’s Polar City Blues is the first volume in Katharine Kerr’s Polar City space opera series.

During the interval between humanity’s collective triumph over Einstein (spaceflight) and the collapse of the terrestrial biosphere, humans were able to establish extraterrestrial colonies, of which Hagar is one. Now unified as the Republic, the human polity is overshadowed by its two neighbors, the Alliance (dominated by the Master Race) and the Confederation (dominated by the carlis). Remaining neutral and unconquered by aliens demands an ongoing balancing act.

Murdered consular personnel could unbalance the diplomatic teeter-totter. Polar City Police Chief Bates now must deal with a murder with far-ranging political implications.

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Gardner Dozois’ 1995 The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Twelfth Annual Collection is, as one might expect, the twelfth annual anthology of notable science fiction edited by Gardner Dozois. The contents of the anthology were first published in 1994. In addition to the essays listed in the table of contents, each story is accompanied by a short biographical note about the author.

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Michaela Roessner’s 1993 Vanishing Point is a near-future science fiction novel¹.

Thirty years ago, 90% of the human race vanished. Alarm and chaos ensued, followed by a gradual return to stability. While the old world will never return, civilization, particularly that part of it in and around San Jose’s Winchester House, has prevailed.

Two unrelated crises are bearing down on San Jose.

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1991’s Hellflower is the first volume in the Hellflower space opera series. Hellflower was written by Rosemary Edghill under the name eluki bes shahar¹.

The Phoenix Empire rose from the ruins of the Federation to provide its subjects with peace, order, and good government. Each subject has their duly allotted role. Butterfly St. Cyr has an unallotted but crucial role: low-level smuggler, testing to see how long it takes the Empire to notice her and execute her for multiple capital crimes.

Butterfly being Butterfly, she will spend the book adding to the affronts for which the Empire might want her dead.

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Melissa Scott’s 1996 Night Sky Mine is a stand-alone post-cyberpunk space opera.

Fearing pirates, miners flee their facility. This presents an opportunity for investigators Rangsay and Tarasov. It’s a doorway into a mystery they might be better off not investigating.

But first! Background exposition I could not figure out how to gracefully infodump.

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1994’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Eleventh Annual Collection is the eleventh (!!!) volume in Gardner Dozois’ annual Best SF anthology series. 

Two immediate thoughts …

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1990’s Gifts of Blood is Susan C. Petrey’s sole collection of short stories. Most (but not all) of them focus on the Varkela, a hominin species closely related to Homo Sapiens Sapiens. These aren’t the usual vampires. Petrey’s vampires are a bit different.

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Jonathan Lethem’s 1994 Gun, with Occasional Music is a near-future stand-alone noir novel. It was Lethem’s debut novel.

Drugs are free, television is entirely abstract, animals have been uplifted, and prison has been replaced by involuntary hibernation … but the life of a private dick is much the same as it was back in the days of Black Mask.

Former Inquisitor turned not particularly successful private inquisitor, Conrad Metcalf is offered a case that he can tell is a loser.

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Candas Jane Dorsey’s 1997 novel Black Wine is very hard to categorize. All I can confidently assert is that it is not set in the present. It was Dorsey’s debut novel.

A nameless waif fell from the sky into a predatory society, which enslaved her. Her life is one of hard labour and repeated rape. An encounter with a mysterious madwoman leaves the waif in possession of a book. There are consequences.

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Misha’s 1990 Red Spider White Web is a stand-alone cyberpunk novel.

Mickey-San provides its pampered inhabitants with every luxury that they could desire: a sealed environment, desperate employees to tend to their every need, even immersive virtual reality so that they need never sully their eyeballs by gazing on the real world. For the lucky few who can call Mickey-San home, it is as close to paradise as possible at this time.

Kumo does not live in Mickey-San. She lives outside, in the slums. Her life is quite different from that of a denizen of Mickey-San.

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