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Queen City Jazz Kathleen Ann Goonan 9780765307514 Books

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Queen City Jazz Kathleen Ann Goonan 9780765307514 Books

I actually read the final book of this series first, many years ago, not realizing that it was part of a series. This first novel definitely lives up to the quirky and weird expectations set up by the final book.

It is a book with its own voice. It has an ephemeral, slightly disjointed style, painting big, strange pictures in your mind. It's definately not something I would recommend reading quickly, as the book is simply strange and surreal if you don't give the images time to unfold in your mind's eye. It's a book with a very visual style.


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Queen City Jazz Kathleen Ann Goonan 9780765307514 Books Reviews

This review is for both QUEEN CITY JAZZ and the sequel MISSISSIPPI BLUES, as I just read both back to back. Although both novels may to some people be too long, after having read them both I found them to contain excellent character development and also a great story. Both books center on nanotechnology, in the medium term future, and it's effects on the characters, and the country as a whole, very well done. Of course, if this doesn't appeal to you, read one of Arthur C. Clarke's outdated space operas. These two books are first class science fiction, with hard science thrown in, you won't find any fantasy here. I especially liked the morality and down to earth world views of the characters. Now we need another sequel.
One final note, if you like hard science fiction, also read THE FIRST IMMORTAL by James Halperin, a very good book, also with nanotechnology thrown in.
Mix together a bit of Alice in Wonderland, the Shakers, jazz improvisation, nanotechnology, plus traditional post-apocalypse sci-fi and you get Queen City Jazz.
It sounds like a mess and it almost is. However, scientifically implausible ideas are kept together by a keen sense of the surreal and the absurd. While the book is too long, there are passages full of evocative beauty.
All in all, a very ambitious first novel, whose ambitions are so high that it is bound not to reach them. It isn't as good as the best bio- / nanotech sci-fi, in particular Paul J McAuley's 'Fairyland', but remarkable enough to merit 4 stars.
(On a final note, I wonder whether Jeff Noon read this before writing 'Pollen'. Although unavailable in the UK at the time, it had already been published in the USA, and there are enough similarities to make me suspicious... perhaps it is just coincidence?)
After the first 150 pages I was entranced. Goonan wove such a wonderful backdrop. I wanted it to go on and on.
Well, be careful what you wish for-- it does go on and on.
Shakers pulled together by plague and fear, a city full of arts run by bees and flowers, a little girl with nodes behind her ears and a strange sense of destiny, a world gone nanotechnology mad where sick people flow like lemmings down the river.
The ideas are exactly as magical and wonderful as they sound, but the plot is not able to live up to their weight. By the time Verity had been running around Cincinnati for a while, I was heartily sick of the whole thing and found there to be *way* too many pages to string out her secret. I would have far preferred that everything in the book happen (condensed) in the first half of an even longer book that took you some place beyond Cincinnati itself.
I still plan to read the sequel.
This story line was so confused, I doubt even the author knew what was really going on. I suspect that the plotline changed in the author's head several times during the writing process. By the end of the book I just no longer cared what happened to anyone in the story. I just wanted it to be over. My suggestion to the author - write an outline BEFORE you write the book.
One of those books that sticks with you long after you read it. unique and evocative. Took me two attempts to finish it though
I wish it, and its sequels were available on audible. The right reader could make this a joy to listen to
Every once in a while, I read artful books, because it's good for me to think about what I do and don't like in stories. This one had many things I liked, like a relatively clear plot and a relatable main character. Verity is, through all her adventures, a person I would like to know. Her life as we come to know her is quiet and peaceful and pretty. Her journey from that to a ruined beautiful city is logical but scary. Her internal journey is even scarier, as she has her mind invaded by other imperatives, programming, and people.

"A juxtaposition of clashing possibilities, almost like the clash of fencing swords, surfaced briefly far back in her mind, and she felt deep despair and keen, blossoming anger at all she did not know about herself."

It took me a long time to read this book, because there was so much stuff around and part of the story. It wasn't just a pearl-handled pistol of a story. It was a story with pearl handles and gold chasing and engraved butts and maybe a hologram. I think I wanted it to be a shorter book, because the heart of it is interesting, but Verity ended up wandering like the Israelites in the desert, and the manna got old.

Read if You like noodling on the state of consciousness, being, or individuality. You enjoyed Dhalgren (S.F. Masterworks).

Skip if You were looking for an adventure story. You are creeped out by nanotech. You want a clear resolution.
This is a very rich novel. Anyone who likes space opera or hard science fiction, won't like this, and I can imagine that readers of literary fiction might find it too fanciful. I really like the way the science fiction ideas and world building are solidly there, but generally seen through of veil of metaphor, allusion, limited point of view. There's real speculative, cutting edge (1995) science fictional speculation behind the narrative. But the reach of the book goes outside of science fiction into ideas about American artistic culture--music, literature, architecture and the way it interacts with our consciousness. Hints of Pyncheon, P.K. Dick, Jonathan Lethem. So to like this book a lot you have to have a lot of reading interests. I'm going to read it again.
I actually read the final book of this series first, many years ago, not realizing that it was part of a series. This first novel definitely lives up to the quirky and weird expectations set up by the final book.

It is a book with its own voice. It has an ephemeral, slightly disjointed style, painting big, strange pictures in your mind. It's definately not something I would recommend reading quickly, as the book is simply strange and surreal if you don't give the images time to unfold in your mind's eye. It's a book with a very visual style.