2020-04-06
A scientist tries to discover the cause of the freak weather event that supposedly killed her mother in this eco–SF series opener.
In 2049, cold weather is a thing of the past and clouds are only found at Earth’s poles. This is a painful development for electromagnetics expert and BASE jumping enthusiast Quinn Buyers, whose passion is the weather. She is not, however, passionate about the man she is about to marry. Mori Eco is a kind, helpful, and organized man—so organized that it’s a little annoying—but Quinn does not want to commit herself to a lifetime of mere compatibility. She calls off the wedding, but the couple still have the reception, which is also meant to be an opportunity to show off Mori’s new business venture—a cloud-dining experience in the Desolation Islands. When a surprise rainstorm hits the cloud ship, Quinn is forced to jump into the water. She’s picked up by the crew of the Prismatic, a recovery vessel, which informs her that all of her reception guests have perished, including her mother, Lise, who has a Nobel Prize in mathematics and recently created a time-travel portal. The crew has a lot of questions for Quinn, not the least of which is the location of her climate model, the G12, which can predict when solar flares may strike and wipe out communications systems across the globe. Quinn manages to leave the Prismatic and immediately sets off on a journey around the world looking for answers, including evidence for the theory that her mother may have used her time-travel portal to escape her fate. In this novel, Lahey’s prose is lush but surprising, describing a deeply imaginative world: Mori “wants her to wear a simulated cloud. Many times, she’s rejected this idea; she’s a scientist, she has a PhD, it took her six years to develop her climate model, she’s not wearing a white, fluffy cloud. But now she’s indebted, so she nods. She’ll wear the cloud dress.” The author’s Earth of the not-too-distant future is an intriguing, alien place, and readers will delight in watching Quinn move through it. There are a few odd choices—like an ill-advised phonetic rendering of an Irish accent—but on the whole, the story is thoroughly engrossing.
An engaging adventure set in a deftly illustrated future.
