3 new sci-fi reads for lovers of literary fiction, noir

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“Ahab’s Return” by Jeffrey Ford, William Morrow, 272 pages, $26.99

Those who struggled through “Moby-Dick” in lit classes might be hesitant about a sequel in which the fearsome Captain Ahab survives, but there are no whales in sight in Jeffrey Ford’s fast-moving thriller set in 1850s New York. Ford, who has won both World Fantasy Awards and the mystery writers’ Edgar Award, displays both sides of his talent as Ahab tries to track down his missing family and confront Ishmael, who he thinks treated him unfairly in episodes chronicled in “Moby-Dick.” He enlists the aid of a reporter for a sensational tabloid, a resourceful street girl, a gorgeous woman novelist, and an African harpooner who also survived the Pequod.

Soon they find themselves tangling with a vicious gang of feral kids, led by a demonic figure called the Pale King Toad, zombie-like minions (including Melville’s own character Bartleby) and a monstrous Manticore. But Ford has more horrors in mind than the supernatural ones; his villain is associated with the real anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party, devoted to “a quest for the reclamation of white Protestant superiority.” The problems of racism, homelessness, addiction and “Me First” politics cut close to home, but Ford also offers a hopeful interlude set in Seneca Village, the peaceful multicultural community that once occupied what is now Central Park. Ford’s elegant style helps make this thriller far more timely than it first appears to be.

“Irontown Blues” by John Varley, Ace, 304 pages, $16

Veteran master John Varley sets many stories in a loosely connected sequence called the Eight Worlds, after humanity is evicted from Earth by superior aliens and forced to settle on other worlds. His latest is set in one of those colonies, on the Moon, but it’s also an affectionate tribute to the hard-boiled mysteries of Raymond Chandler. The protagonist, Christopher Bach, sports a trenchcoat and fedora, and even lives in a neighborhood called Noirtown, where every block recreates a different 20th-century decade. But the blinking neon sign outside his seedy office is just a video display, and his dog Sherlock is actually a superintelligent “Cybernetically Enhanced Canine” who narrates part of the story. Not surprisingly, Bach’s sexy client Mary Smith isn’t quite who she first appears to be, either.

Mary wants him to find a man who she claims deliberately infected her with a leprosylike illness. This leads him to the dangerous Irontown district, where he uncovers secrets not only of his own past, but that of his mother, an ex-police chief who now raises cloned dinosaurs (which serve as both tourist attraction and a food source). While the mystery deepens and gets a bit tangled, Varley’s richly imagined lunar society, a kind of theme park based on memories of Earth, is equally central to the novel, as is the wonderfully odd storytelling voice of the dog Sherlock.

“Alien Virus Love Disaster” by Abbey Mei Otis, Small Beer, 256 pages, $16

The title of Abbey Mei Otis’ first story collection may sound like a cross between a tabloid headline and a cheap horror movie, but Otis actually belongs with writers like Kelly Link, who freely borrow genre materials to construct elegant literary fictions far more about character than spectacle. The title story does involve a virus from outer space that escapes a secret government lab and begins transforming people in a neighboring town, but the focus is on the young narrator and her little brother coping with radical changes over which they have no control. The aliens that show up in other stories are more often benign than hostile. In one, they bring us advanced technology, but are oddly fascinated by watching teenagers fight or supermarket clerks work. In another tale, a 6-year-old befriends an insectlike creature, only to lose her best friend because of anti-alien bigotry.

Other stories take place in decaying, almost dystopian suburbs where odd things happen, such as a sex-robot falling out of the sky, or a mother so addicted to a virtual world better than her own that she ignores her kids during a crisis. Another character, escaping a bleak home life, crashes a party of the superrich, who turn out to be super decadent in bizarre ways. As odd as these worlds are, they are populated by sharply drawn characters we come to care about through Otis’ luminescent prose.

Gary K. Wolfe is the editor of “American Science Fiction,” a Library of America anthology collecting nine classic works from the 1950s.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/sc-books-science-fiction-0912-story.html