Blackfish City
Books | Fiction / Dystopian
3.6
(91)
Sam J. Miller
A team of outsiders unite to save a city of refugees and elites on a drowned Earth in this “action-packed science fiction thriller” (Washington Post).A Best Book of the Month: Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, Tor.com, B&N Sci-Fi Fantasy Blog, Amazon“An ambitious, imaginative, and big-hearted dystopian ensemble. . . . Miller has crafted a thriller that unflinchingly examines the ills of urban capitalism. . . . Rendered in poetic interludes.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population.When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side—the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people—each living on the periphery—to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves. Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent—and ultimately very hopeful—novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.“Miller’s poetic prose gives this dystopian story a taut, lyrical edge.” —Entertainment Weekly“An incisive and beautifully written story of love, revenge, and the power (and failure) of a family in a scarily plausible future.” —Ann Leckie“I haven’t been this swept away by imagination and worldbuilding since Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.” —Carmen Maria Machado
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Author
Sam J. Miller
Pages
331
Publisher
HarperCollins
Published Date
2018-04-17
ISBN
0062684841 9780062684844
Community ReviewsSee all
"*AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*!!!!!! This was a PHENOMENAL book!!!!! I'll be honest, I didn't have high expectations for Blackfish City, but WOW!!!!! It exceeded all of them SPECTACULARLY!!!!! The plot is just Fantastic, it's written so well, there's so much Diversity!!!!! This is just such a GREAT book and I think everyone should read it!!!!! Especially with the times we live in!!!!"
"DNF...this was a hard pass for me. Usually I try to read about 50 pages before I make a call on the book, but considering I cannot figure out what’s going on and am not enjoying it in the slightest, I think I’ll do myself a favor and let this one go. I read a lot of reviews that say it picks up around halfway through the book, but I just don’t think I can force myself to get there where I have a TBR list the length of the Great Wall of China."
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Allie Peduto
"This is kind of a conflicting one for me to review because I liked the overall story but I didn't really like the book. The setting was interesting, sort of an arctic-themed cyberpunk city run by AI with a few rich human "stakeholders", where organized crime is everywhere and people are on the streets losing their minds to an illness called the breaks that no one in power will deal with because of optics. The story of a strange woman and her entourage of animals sweeping in to turn this upside down is compelling.<br/><br/>I just really didn't like the writing. A few of the plot twists were things that annoy me in any narrative, the language is pretentious and weird, and the author uses the word orgasmic to describe way too many things. It's not inherently a bad book, but it definitely didn't work for me."
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