I just finished reading Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller and it is very, very good. It fits into the loose post-climate change genre of science fiction that some people are calling SolarPunk (if we must assign names and movements to things). It focuses on a floating city called Qaanaaq anchored atop a geothermal vent in the Arctic circle. The world building and sense of life after the deluge is very strong but perhaps more notable (for an sf novel) are the lively and likeable characters, notably arrayed across a spectrum of sexual orientation. Although there are definitely a number of slightly cliched, or perhaps more charitably archetypal characters including the world-weary boxer and the spunky messenger kid, the detail of their struggles and vividness of their emotions punches through. The narrative hinges around a group of pharmaceutical test subjects called the nanobonded who gain the ability to psychically link with an animal for life. One of the heroes of the story is a woman who shows up in town riding an orca with a polar bear in tow. It’s a novel, fun idea and works in the story.
The plot moves along at a brisk pace, but for me the most affecting and lasting impression of the novel is the feeling it transmits of struggling to live in a city. Miller, the author is based in New York City, my hometown. The city features prominently in the story, even though it has long since drowned. People speak in recognizable New York accents and the history of actions taken in and against the city are part of the plot. The descriptions of people struggling to live in the semi-lawlessness of AI controlled Qaanaaq, struggling to keep warm, struggling to find tiny spaces to rent in which to sleep, struggling to maintain a place in the social fabric of the city feels incredibly New York in it’s concerns. One of the central struggles of the narrative is between tenants and rich landlords. The portrayal of city-as-cliff-face which people cling to daily trying to survive, even as they watch those around them slip and fall, is powerful and affecting. There’s a memorable scene in which one of the characters must choose whether to eat or rent a warm room for the night and goes to sleep bitterly angry in a cold canvas sided box that I found particularly memorable.
What strikes me about Blackfish City above all is it’s multifaceted emotional depth. It’s a story of hardship, and harrowing experiences but does not fall down the hole of nihilism or subject us to an endless sadistic torturing of it’s characters, an exercise some authors seem to mistake for depth or seriousness. Instead we have a group of people struggling under terrible circumstances, but also finding moments of love, connection, familial closeness. These moments are all the more vivid for their humane contrast against the cold harshness of the world in which they live, and make them all the more affecting. Blackfish City is a beautiful book by a strong new voice, one I highly recommend.
