By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.īlackfish City is a remarkably urgent-and ultimately very hopeful-novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection. Secrets are revealed and a power structure is under threat in this near-future, almost-but-not-quite dystopian tale set in a floating Arctic Circle city. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people-each living on the periphery-to stage unprecedented acts of resistance.
When a strange new visitor arrives-a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side-the city is entranced. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living however, the city is starting to fray along the edges-crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population. Valente's gift for rich language seems to serve her well in what at times reads like stream-of-consciousness comedy.After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. A startling, uncontrollable reaction: Fill giggled. A child jumped, swatted at the snow, laughed at how a fish or bird imploded only to reappear as new flakes fell. Equally entertaining are her sometimes snarky sidebars about pop icons from David Bowie to the Carpenters (who "alone pretty much disqualify you" from having a chance, Jones is told). Projectors hidden below the grid he walked on beamed gorgeous writhing fractal shapes onto the wind-blown flurry. Miller’s new novel Blackfish City, it’s because I want to and has nothing to do with the buzzy buzz the book is receiving. One is an artificial intelligence that takes the form of the annoying Microsoft "Office Assistant" paper clip, another is an intelligent virus that turns other life forms into zombies. There are only two catches: The aliens choose who will represent Earth, and whoever ends up last in the contest gets their whole civilization wiped out.ĭecibel Jones and the Absolute Zeros desperately try to find a song that will enable them to save the world, but the plot takes a back seat to Valente's hilarious barrage of alien societies. When aliens, who look a little like flamingos and a little like the Road Runner, appear simultaneously all over the world, they make us an offer we literally can't refuse: competing in a gigantic Eurovision-type song contest called the Metagalactic Grand Prix. Admirers of Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" will feel at home in this wildly comical and cheerfully absurd galactic adventure, which finds the fate of human civilization in the hands of an over-the-hill glam-rock band whose star performer is already dead.
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