Crescent City Rhapsody (Hardcover)

by Kathleen A. Goonan (Author) "Zeb downshifted to take a curve on the two-lane blacktop; the creek had flooded the road, leaving sheet of ice in the bend..." (more)
Key Phrases: hopscotch bar, biogenic magnetite, intelligent source, New Orleans, Petite Marie, Crescent City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
What would it feel like to live through a biological revolution? Many science fiction writers chronicling a vast technological shift lose sight of the people who would have to deal with it. Not so Kathleen Ann Goonan, whose Crescent City Rhapsody is the third of her Nanotech Cycle novels. Each of her characters is profoundly real, and the things that happen to them are as confusing, awe-inspiring, and terrifying as you might expect.

Goonan's story begins with the assassination of Marie Laveau, New Orleans cyber-entrepreneur and grand-niece of the famous voudoun queen. By prior arrangement, Marie is resurrected into a cloned body and prepares for revenge, but she awakens into a world beset by the Silence--periodic bursts of microchip-destroying radiation from space. Enter Dr. Zeb Aberly, a bipolar astrophysicist whose manic episodes help him understand that the Silence contains an alien message and perhaps the potential to change humanity's biology radically. Meanwhile, in Japan, a young biotechnician seals her fate when she helps steal the recipe for a Universal Assembler, a nanotech tool of fearsome power and destructive capability. The stage is set for a revolution, and Goonan delivers, with complex, interwoven story lines that resemble the rhythms and structure of a jazz composition.

Brightly colored lines were inching their way up buildings like plants in a fast-growing jungle. She moved briskly, but her heart was lifeless. She was looking at her past and seeing a future that she was not a part of.

People sat leaning against buildings here and there, which was the hardest to see. They were not begging. Their brains were changing.

They were adapting to the new city.

As cities become organisms, a new generation of profoundly different humans comes of age and hope dawns in Crescent City, and Goonan directs the show with artistic flair. Crescent City Rhapsody is confusing and delightful, a swoony harmony of words swirling around crisply melodic ideas. --Therese Littleton

From Publishers Weekly
In 2012, a mysterious alien signal from space strikes Earth, sending the Information Age into a horrifying tailspin. An intermittent Silence descends on the planet, disrupting all electronic devices and sparking a virus that nine months later produces mutated children with a heightened receptivity to electromagnetic forces. In New Orleans--home of the improvisatory jazz that has clearly inspired Goonan's extrapolation of current scientific trends--Marie Laveau, a mob chieftain and mulatto descendant of voudoun priestesses, is murdered by hit men, but then resurrected through the new science of nanotechnology. She launches a complex 20-year plan to save her city--and her world. Seceding from the Union, Marie's New Orleans becomes the jumping-off place for a new nation, Crescent City, a Caribbean island she creates. Marie eventually brings together Kita, a brilliant Japanese research scientist; Kita's lover, Hugo, who's Marie's faithful assistant; Zeb, the psychologically disturbed astrophysicist who first realized that an alien intelligence lay behind the Silence; Tamchu, a Tibetan refugee and terrorist; and Jason, one of the gifted mutant children. Like Marie, all have to risk extinction while they brave the apocalyptic storm unleashed by ecoterrorists and governments gone xenophobically mad. Their separate stories eventually intersect with Marie's attempt to birth a brave new world that someday will send humanity to the stars. Highly imaginative, peopled with intriguing characters and as intellectually demanding yet emotionally satisfying as Duke Ellington's best, Goonan's literary rhapsody continues her highly praised Nanotech Quartet (Queen City Jazz; Mississippi Blues; to be concluded with Light Music), which imaginatively explores the scientific perils and promises lying at our very doorstep. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Eos; 1st edition (February 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380977117
• ISBN-13: 978-0380977116
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,295,578 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sf the way it is supposed to be written, February 20, 2000

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In 2012, the electromagnetic impulse that shuts down worldwide communications makes the Northeast blackout of four plus decades ago seems like a blown light bulb. Computers become silent. Studying that void, DC astrophysicist Zeb Aberly concludes that the impulse was not a freak of nature, but a signal from an intelligent ET source. Instead of accolades and kudos, Zeb is forced to run for his life, ultimately ending up in New Orleans.

While the pulses continue to wreck havoc, infants born after the disaster start showing strange physical and mental abilities. In New Orleans, someone assassinates mob chieftain Marie Laveau, her spouse, and child. Nanotechnology brings Marie back to life, but her family was beyond repair. Marie vows revenge. She also tries to build a safe haven with the help of outlawed technological geniuses like Zeb, but time is running out as the new world order plans to stop her and her Crescent City.

CRESCENT CITY RHAPSODY, the third novel in Kathleen Ann Goonan's "Nanotech" series (see QUEEN CITY JAZZ and MISSISSIPPI BLUES) is a wonderful futuristic tale. The story line speculates on the path science and technology may take mankind down in the next decade or so. The action is non-stop in this bleak but fascinating novel. The charcaters are fully developed, but what makes this tale and its predecessors so good is the author's ability to paint a grim landscape that feels genuinely possible.

Harriet Klausner

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll Never Look at the Stars the Same Again, February 21, 2000

By	Charlotte R. Dixon "novelist and freelance wr... (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Crescent City Rhapsody absorbed me in a way no other novel has in recent history. Kathleen Ann Goonan has the gift for creating complex, interesting characters who people a richly developed plot that takes an intriguing, if terrifying look at the future. Far and away the best of the trilogy, and I liked the other books a lot, too. As a professional writer, I'm a tough customer, but I really loved this book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasing, but..., April 15, 2000

By	BK Miller (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

Crescent City Rhapsody is the third in Kathleen Ann Goonan's nanotech/jazz series. It opens with a staggering collapse of global communications and ends with the promise of a better tomorrow. In between the ride is bumpy, sometimes compelling and sometimes not. Of the three, this one has a far higher level of suspense and far less speculation than the other two, probably because the time is so much closer to our own. Solid characters, stunning prose, and only a couple of weak spots make this a book well worth reading.

About those weak spots though,...

After the stunning portrayal of Hawaiian culture in "Bones of Time", the cultural symbols in this book often leave one wondering about their significance. The sections on Voudoun rites and ritual, although accurate and sympathetic, seem forced and awkward, as if they are wondering why they are even here. When she drops into Japan for a brief stint, she confuses common foods and falls back on a few tired cliches about Japanese culture. Other than those two minor weaknesses, an excellent book and a superb addition to her repertoire.