Light Music - Softcover

Kathleen Ann Goonan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857988892 ISBN 13: 9781857988895

Publisher: Gollancz Paperbacks, 2002

Synopsis

Once the world worked differently -- before the Silence from space quieted the airwaves and rendered electronics useless. In a haven called Crescent City, built through the wonders of nanotechnology to transport its enlightened inhabitants into the cosmos, far away from the terrors and chaos of a world gone mad, humanity has failed. One of the original pioneers, Jason Peabody, must now flee in the wake of an unanticipated assault on the city by pirates. He embarks on a bizarre odyssey across a perilous, unrecognisable outside -- a landscape of Western round-ups and tragically 'youngening' children; of plague-ravaged humans in foreboding flower cities; of conscious machines, talking animals and toys that long to be real. And the appearance on Earth of strange illuminations is causing widespread panic and fear, as pilgrims gather in Crescent City seeking answers to the Silence's long-concealed mysteries, responding to the hypnotic light music calling them towards a remarkable destiny in the stars . . .

About this title

About the Author

* QUEEN CITY JAZZ was chosen as one of the eight best novels of the year by the New York Times

* ‘A startlingly original and energetic imagination’ Paul McAuley

Goonan is one of the rising stars of world SF Regarded as Goonan’s best novel yet Mass market edition many months in advance of US mass market

From Publishers Weekly

In this exuberant if jumbled concluding volume of Goonan's Nanontech Quartet (Queen City Jazz, etc.), the microscopic machines of the 22nd century have gone beyond creating sentient cities and controlling all communications on Earth they are themselves evolving. When mysterious lights point to an alien presence and disappearing people arouse stark fear, three human survivors, including Argentine refugee Angelina, set out to solve the mystery and measure the threat to humanity. A lot of picaresque adventures ensue. Angelina's travels take her from an authoritarian Argentina across the Atlantic in a robot ship to North Africa, then in a mysterious one-way train to a nano-ruled Paris, accompanied all the while by a sapient doll (evolving toward humanity) named Chester. Nothing that happens to the other two, elderly Jason Peabody and his sidekick, Dania, is quite as interesting, until the Crescent City devolves into its original function as a spaceship and rides into orbit. As part of a grand scheme, humans and nanos eventually merge into a single entity linked to Earth. Readers new to the quartet will find the action hard to follow, while others may be put off by the author's at times less than polished narrative technique. Nonetheless, this classic novel of ideas, with state-of-the-art technology as its subject, remains the work of a powerful imagination with a superior command of language. (June 7)of Time.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Gollancz Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1857988892
• ISBN 13: 9781857988895
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432