Blackfish City
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3.6 • 8 Ratings
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL***
***A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF 2018***
***A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF 2018***
***A WASHINGTON POST BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL OF 2018***
'A remarkable work of dystopian imagination' - Starburst
'Incisive and beautifully written . . . Blackfish City simmers with menace and heartache, suspense and wonder' - Ann Leckie, Hugo, Nebula and Clarke Award-winning author
*****
After the climate wars, a floating city was constructed in the Arctic Circle. Once a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering it is now rife with corruption and the population simmers with unrest.
Into this turmoil comes a strange new visitor - a woman accompanied by an orca and a chained polar bear. She disappears into the crowds looking for someone she lost thirty years ago, followed by whispers of a vanished people who could bond with animals. Her arrival draws together four people and sparks a chain of events that will change Blackfish City forever.
DISTURBING, POWERFUL AND FEARLESSLY IMAGINED, BLACKFISH CITY IS A MESMERISING NOVEL FROM A REMARKABLE NEW VOICE IN SCIENCE FICTION
*****
'A compelling dystopian thriller' Guardian
'Sam Miller is a fiercely strong writer, and this book is a blast' - Daryl Gregory, World Fantasy
Award-winning author
'I haven't been this swept away by imagination and worldbuilding since Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials' - Carmen Maria Machado, National Book Award-nominated author of Her Body and other Parties
'Damn near perfect' - The Book Smugglers
'An ambitious, imaginative and big-hearted dystopian ensemble story that's by turns elegiac and angry' - Publisher's Weekly
'This is the kind of swirling, original sci-fi we live for' - B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Miller, fresh from his YA debut (The Art of Starving), makes the jump to adult SF with an ambitious, imaginative, and big-hearted dystopian ensemble story that's by turns elegiac and angry. The floating city of Qaanaaq was constructed after many mainland cities burned or sank. The arrival of a woman with two unusual companions an orca and a polar bear draws a disparate group together. Ankit, a political aide, wants to free her institutionalized birth mother; her brother, Kaev, is a brain-damaged fighter at the end of his career; Fill, a rich playboy, has the breaks, an illness that throws sufferers into strangers' memories; and Soq, an ambitious nonbinary street messenger, is trying to hustle their way into a better life. Together, they uncover a dramatic series of secrets, connections, and political plots. Miller has crafted a thriller that unflinchingly examines the ills of urban capitalism. Qaanaaq is a beautiful and brutal character in its own right, rendered in poetic interludes. The novel stumbles only at the very end, in a denouement that feels just a little too hurried for the characters' twisting journey.
