Queen City Jazz (Mass Market Paperback)

by Kathleen Ann Goonan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This impressive first novel by an experienced story writer combines hallucinogenic visions, historical personae and an original futuristic dystopia. Young Verity has been raised by a reconstructionist Shaker group that bases its religion on the American cult that banned sex and believed in "simple" virtues. The adolescent has strange powers and mysterious compulsions that cause her to seek out and learn things from technologies that her adoptive community has forsaken. After tragedy strikes her "family," Verity packs up several precious burdens and repairs to the technologically superior but dangerously insane "enlivened" city of Cincinnati. There she meets the passionate jazz musician Sphere and becomes embroiled in mutating versions of a nanotech plague and overlapping views of the historical facts that led to the destruction of rational civilization. In Cincinnati she learns her true identity and how to affect the city's destiny. Highlights of the book include a scene in which Ernest Hemingway gets kicked off a baseball team because he's not a "team player" and a mini-lesson in the communication techniques of bees. Also a pleasure is watching the intelligent heroine grapple with responsibility, passion and artistic creation. While overly dense in detail, Goonan's work is powerful and richly textured.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
In a future warped by nanotechnology-gone-mad, a young woman leaves the protected community of Shaker Hill and embarks on a journey to the "enlivened" city of Cincinnati. Hoping to find answers to questions long forbidden by people who learned to reject the technology that betrayed them, Verity discovers the key to the future within herself. Goonan's first novel combines gentle Shaker philosophy with kaleidoscopic images drawn from Cincinnati's Jazz Age. The resulting heady blend deserves a place in most sf collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 465 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (January 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812536266
• ISBN-13: 978-0812536263
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,485,087 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Near miss., August 12, 2000

By	C. Gilbert "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting ideas dragged down by a ho-hum plot, September 15, 1998

By A Customer

"Queen City Jazz" wants to be several things: a post-apocalyptic cautionary tale; a voyage of discovery; an exploration of the human condition. Unfortunately, it does none of these particularly well. Part of the problem is that the book's pace is so slow; I could hardly keep interested as the heroine, Verity, slogged through her (seemingly) interminable adventures. And I really have to object to the author's overuse of the tired phrase, "I've said too much already."

There are some good ideas in this book, but they are buried in some long-winded, not-very-interesting passages. And that's a shame.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Aims high, almost makes it, September 3, 1999

By	flying-monkey (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.) - See all my reviews

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?)