It took me a long time to figure out what I thought about this book. Even after finishing it, I can’t be quite sure what I just read. It was all very surreal and dreamlike, and main character Verity seemed more like a reporter than an actor. In the end, I’d say this book was about a world, and that the world was the only real character in it.
If you’re really into weird and creative science fiction, this might be for you. I cannot fault the author’s imagination, nor her descriptive ability. She did make an absurd world come to life for a short time. The trouble is that it wasn’t particularly fun to imagine. This, I think, was due to the lack of characters. As I said, I didn’t feel there was a single human character in the book — only a world.
As far as possibilities go, nanotech is one of those science fiction buzzwords that often takes the place of magic in fantasy novels. In this case, nanotech seems to have destroyed the world as we know it, and replaced it with something else, something broken, something that might have stripped the humanity out of humans. This made me think of this book as a horror novel.
It did ask one of those essential science fiction questions: What is the nature of humanity and what makes us human?
I recommend this if you like weird, vividly constructed science fiction worlds. I can’t recommend it if you, like me, fixate on strong central characters.
Rating: 2/5
Title: Queen City Jazz
Author: Kathleen Ann Goonan
ISBN: 0765307510
Published: May 30, 2003