Miller writes with fine-tuned precision, never wasting a word. You can sense the author's enthusiasm in sketching out the social divisions and intricacies that make up the enormous floating city, and the customs and living arrangements of its disparate population. At times Blackfish City almost seems less like a novel and more like a highly detailed study of a world that feels far deeper than the novel's 300 pages would suggest. And despite the setting being well-removed from our own, it feels extremely close – like something that could be happening now, or in as little as ten years. But the problems of the past have followed it: massive poverty and inequality, refugees streaming in from all over the world, political instability and corruption, and deadly diseases like the breaks, a sexually transmitted infection that slowly drives those who are afflicted to madness. Seeking refuge, countless people have fled to Qaanaaq, a mechanical arctic-sited city. The novel opens in the near future (it's never definitively stated when, but certainly a couple of generations removed from our own) in the aftermath of several climate wars and great destruction all around the globe. Fans of dystopian sci-fi will eat this one up – it's only January and already I can guarantee this one will make a lot of best of 2018 lists. I spent two weeks engrossed in Blackfish City. Plausible and realistic yet fantastical and inventive, sure to be a highlight of 2018. Summary: A spectacular science-fiction epic.
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