★ 10/09/2017
Miller, fresh from his YA debut (The Art of Starving), makes the jump to adult SF with an ambitious, imaginative, and big-hearted dystopian ensemble story that’s by turns elegiac and angry. The floating city of Qaanaaq was constructed after many mainland cities burned or sank. The arrival of a woman with two unusual companions—an orca and a polar bear—draws a disparate group together. Ankit, a political aide, wants to free her institutionalized birth mother; her brother, Kaev, is a brain-damaged fighter at the end of his career; Fill, a rich playboy, has the breaks, an illness that throws sufferers into strangers’ memories; and Soq, an ambitious nonbinary street messenger, is trying to hustle their way into a better life. Together, they uncover a dramatic series of secrets, connections, and political plots. Miller has crafted a thriller that unflinchingly examines the ills of urban capitalism. Qaanaaq is a beautiful and brutal character in its own right, rendered in poetic interludes. The novel stumbles only at the very end, in a denouement that feels just a little too hurried for the characters’ twisting journey. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Company. (Apr.)
Immersive sci-fi with a poetic edge. . . . The book thrills with its meticulous world-building while also providing great characters, inclusive representation, and hard-hitting themes.” — Entertainment Weekly, Best of 2018 So Far
“An urgent tale imploring us to look at the ties between technology, race, gender and class privilege. . . . Surprisingly heartwarming. . . . An action-packed science fiction thriller.” — Washington Post
“Miller’s poetic prose gives this dystopian story a taut, lyrical edge.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Impressive. . . . Fabulous. . . . We tend to label almost any future city as dystopian, but the term hardly does justice to Miller’s complex society.” — Chicago Tribune
“Delightful. . . . [A] gripping novel full of vivid descriptions, compelling characters, timely urgency, and thrilling action. An immediate page-turner.” — The Advocate
“Vividly brought to life. . . . Miller excels at depicting a metropolis bursting at the seams and populated by both refugees and the elite. Blackfish City is a compelling dystopian thriller.” — The Guardian
“Blackfish City feels like a place I’ve never seen in a story before, but I came away feeling as though I’d lived there forever. One of the most intriguing future cities in years.” — Charlie Jane Anders
“This is the kind of swirling, original sci-fi we live for.” — B&N Sci-Fi Fantasy Blog
“Bleak, gut-wrenching, yet beautifully written, Blackfish City ponders what makes a society thrive or die.” — Amazon Book Review
“A timeless story of rebellion against a corrupt master, giving it a kind of Hunger Games resonance that reaches beyond any genre boundaries. Miller is a graceful writer.” — Booklist
“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)
“A floating Arctic city; nano-bonded orcas and polar bears; an Earth violently reshaped by the mistakes we’re making right now… I haven’t been this swept away by imagination and worldbuilding since Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. A gorgeous, queer, muscular novel.” — Carmen Maria Machado, National Book Award-nominated author of Her Body and Other Parties
“A wildly inventive post-cyberpunk ride that also has real things to say about community and family. Sam Miller’s drowned future is vivid and fully real, even as he throws in the weird and the fantastic. Sam Miller is a fiercely strong writer, and this book is a blast.” — Daryl Gregory, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Spoonbenders
“Blackfish City is an exhilarating tour of a post-catastrophe future that’s both fantastical and eerily convincing. Imagine The Yiddish Policeman’s Union cross-bred with Snowcrash and you’ll get an inkling of the imaginative horsepower on display here.” — Adam Sternbergh, author of The Blinds
“Miller gives us an incisive and beautifully written story of love, revenge, and the power (and failure) of family in a scarily plausible future. Blackfish City simmers with menace and heartache, suspense and wonder.” — Ann Leckie, New York Times bestselling and Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke Award-winning author of Ancillary Justice
Impressive. . . . Fabulous. . . . We tend to label almost any future city as dystopian, but the term hardly does justice to Miller’s complex society.
This is the kind of swirling, original sci-fi we live for.
Immersive sci-fi with a poetic edge. . . . The book thrills with its meticulous world-building while also providing great characters, inclusive representation, and hard-hitting themes.
Delightful. . . . [A] gripping novel full of vivid descriptions, compelling characters, timely urgency, and thrilling action. An immediate page-turner.
Blackfish City feels like a place I’ve never seen in a story before, but I came away feeling as though I’d lived there forever. One of the most intriguing future cities in years.
A timeless story of rebellion against a corrupt master, giving it a kind of Hunger Games resonance that reaches beyond any genre boundaries. Miller is a graceful writer.
An urgent tale imploring us to look at the ties between technology, race, gender and class privilege. . . . Surprisingly heartwarming. . . . An action-packed science fiction thriller.
Vividly brought to life. . . . Miller excels at depicting a metropolis bursting at the seams and populated by both refugees and the elite. Blackfish City is a compelling dystopian thriller.
Miller gives us an incisive and beautifully written story of love, revenge, and the power (and failure) of family in a scarily plausible future. Blackfish City simmers with menace and heartache, suspense and wonder.
A wildly inventive post-cyberpunk ride that also has real things to say about community and family. Sam Miller’s drowned future is vivid and fully real, even as he throws in the weird and the fantastic. Sam Miller is a fiercely strong writer, and this book is a blast.”
A floating Arctic city; nano-bonded orcas and polar bears; an Earth violently reshaped by the mistakes we’re making right now… I haven’t been this swept away by imagination and worldbuilding since Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. A gorgeous, queer, muscular novel.
Blackfish City is an exhilarating tour of a post-catastrophe future that’s both fantastical and eerily convincing. Imagine The Yiddish Policeman’s Union cross-bred with Snowcrash and you’ll get an inkling of the imaginative horsepower on display here.
A timeless story of rebellion against a corrupt master, giving it a kind of Hunger Games resonance that reaches beyond any genre boundaries. Miller is a graceful writer.
An urgent tale imploring us to look at the ties between technology, race, gender and class privilege. . . . Surprisingly heartwarming. . . . An action-packed science fiction thriller.
Impressive. . . . Fabulous. . . . We tend to label almost any future city as dystopian, but the term hardly does justice to Miller’s complex society.
Miller’s poetic prose gives this dystopian story a taut, lyrical edge.
A wildly inventive post-cyberpunk ride that also has real things to say about community and family. Sam Miller’s drowned future is vivid and fully real, even as he throws in the weird and the fantastic. Sam Miller is a fiercely strong writer, and this book is a blast.”
An urgent tale imploring us to look at the ties between technology, race, gender and class privilege. . . . Surprisingly heartwarming. . . . An action-packed science fiction thriller.
A timeless story of rebellion against a corrupt master, giving it a kind of Hunger Games resonance that reaches beyond any genre boundaries. Miller is a graceful writer.
Vividly brought to life. . . . Miller excels at depicting a metropolis bursting at the seams and populated by both refugees and the elite. Blackfish City is a compelling dystopian thriller.
Immersive sci-fi with a poetic edge. . . . The book thrills with its meticulous world-building while also providing great characters, inclusive representation, and hard-hitting themes.
Impressive. . . . Fabulous. . . . We tend to label almost any future city as dystopian, but the term hardly does justice to Miller’s complex society.
Blackfish City feels like a place I’ve never seen in a story before, but I came away feeling as though I’d lived there forever. One of the most intriguing future cities in years.
Delightful. . . . [A] gripping novel full of vivid descriptions, compelling characters, timely urgency, and thrilling action. An immediate page-turner.
This is the kind of swirling, original sci-fi we live for.
This is the kind of swirling, original sci-fi we live for.
★ 2018-10-21
Secrets are revealed and a power structure is under threat in this near-future, almost-but-not-quite dystopian tale set in a floating Arctic Circle city.
Populated by the refugees and descendants of refugees from nations destroyed by social upheaval and environmental disasters, Qaanaaq is run by software while political and economic power rests in the hands of landlords, crime gangs, and the ultrawealthy, never-seen shareholders. But what was once a relatively stable system is headed for a shakeup as the gulf between the haves and have-nots widens. Someone is transmitting subversive broadcasts about life in Qaanaaq; a gang lord is planning her ascent to the ranks of shareholders; a woman seeks to help her mother, who's imprisoned, perhaps unjustly, in an ultrasecure mental hospital; a brain-damaged fighter is pressured into becoming an enforcer; an ambitious courier becomes a spy; and the grandson of a shareholder contracts a sexually transmitted disease that fatally afflicts its carriers with the memories of the previously infected. But true chaos only enters the city with Masaaraq, a tough warrior woman who travels with her psychically bonded orca and a chained polar bear. She has a very specific reason for coming to Qaanaaq, and she does not care whom she harms or what plans she disrupts in the course of fulfilling her purpose. Although it has its bleak and very violent moments, there's also a certain amount of optimism in this story, which ultimately proves to be about family and the hard-won strength of those who survive against all odds. Author and professional activist Miller (The Art of Starving, 2017) allows his passion for advocacy—for people desperately clinging to their hope for a home, exploited minorities, and those outside the cishet dichotomy—to inform and structure his fiction but in such an integral and yet casual way that it never feels preachy.
Harsh and lovely.
