Spin State is a solid hard-sf outing with a little bit of everything - cyberspace, physics, novel FTL transport, complex relationships, politics, military aspects, and in-the-trenches work and fighting. After a quick action-sequence start, the story settles into a mystery, with the reader and the protagonist thrown into unfamiliar ground with insufficient information. Systems and interconnections are slowly revealed in a way that keeps the pages turning. While this novel owes a lot to Gibson's Neuromancer, it stands on its own. ( )

Spin State is heavy on cyberpunk, heavy on mystery, unrelenting in keeping this reader in suspense and uncertainty and awe. Moriarty builds impressively upon the work of earlier cyberpunk giants and creates a very enjoyable space colonization/alien encounter story, some in real space, some in cyberspace IN SPACE, that is quintessential and uniquely hers. Full of adventure and mystery and some multi-dimensional people (human and otherwise) this novel still managed to overwhelm me where the cybernetic and quantum physics sciences were at once dense and under explained. This is a book best read slowly and lovingly, and a definite must for hard science fiction readers. ( )

(Alistair) So, here's a book that took me rather longer to read than usual. Spin State is a semi-hard SF/noirish mystery novel set in a future in which the main human culture, dominated by the UN, now resides in a vast ring habit around what's left of Earth and assorted off-planet colonies, governed by a UN that's finally turned into an effective-but-not-nice government. In opposition to it are the Syndicates, off-planet colonies occupied by a collectivist genetic-construct clone culture that rebelled against their human creators (probably because they treated them like the AIs, is my guess), and the aforementioned emergent AIs, who have their own plans despite being kept under the UNs thumb by conveniently implanted kill-switches. (And who, interestingly, interact with the physical world by puppeting humans equipped with the right interface hardware.)

The UN government is held together (and a lot of society operates) via FTL communications mediated via entanglement in Bose-Einstein condensates - in this case, mined condensates, which come from only one place in known space, a miserable mining (condensates and the coal with which they are associated) from which our protagonist (Maj. Catherine Li, UN Special Forces) just happens to hail originally. But can't remember very well, since being transmitted across this quantum-teleportation FTL network tends to cause memory problems.

Who now has to go back there, to investigate the suspected murder of a physicist who's been working with the unmined condensates, on who-knows-what. (Who also happens to be a genetic construct, and actually one of the same model as our protagonist - who is hiding that fact, very illegally, by claiming just to have a construct grandmother.) And in doing so, quickly runs into an entire web of people hiding things, Syndicate spies, factions among the miners opposed to the mining company, and enough deception and betrayal to keep us busy for months...

Impressive job on the world, I'll say that first, although the concepts used are often old familiars, made all the more impressive since I'm told this was actually the author's debut novel. And an interesting plot - the only problem, in that respect, and one of the things that made it take quite so long to read, being that the plot spawned myriad subplots, which twisted and turned and unfortunately fell a little flat simply because they were sufficiently numerous I didn't think any really got the time they deserved. This also slows down the execution of the main plot more than I would really prefer, too.

Not that I didn't enjoy it, but I think it could have been slimmed down into a better book. It'll be interesting to see if I have the same complaint about the sequel, Spin Control, when I find a copy of that.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ce... ) ( )

Finished reading Chris Moriarty's SF debut, Spin State, and I have to say it was a fantastic read. Not for the SF amateur. This book combines elements of military SF and cyberpunk beautifully and just throws you in. It expects you to swim, and even though I stumbled in the first few pages, I found my footing and the book read at a good, solid pace, though not a pace you want to speed through. It's a complex and detailed plot that focuses on Catherine Li, a genetic construct who snuck her way into the military and, thanks to FTL jumps, forgets more than she remembers. But she does remember the name of her homeworld, and dreads going back there when she's assigned to investigate the murder of a famous physicist who also happens to be Li's genetic twin. There's a little bit of everything in this book, battle scenes, Emergent AIs, and a touch of romance (same-sex romance, in some cases). Definitely worth the read for any SF fan.

The full review, which does contain spoilers, is at my journal if anyone's interested. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome.

REVIEW: Chris Moriarty's SPIN STATE

Happy Reading! ( )

Too posthuman for you? Tough. All your Bose belong to us.

Firstly, imagine an equilateral triangle, with its base on a flat surface. The top vertex is labelled Greg Egan. The bottom left is Elizabeth Bear. The bottom right is Richard Morgan. Draw a straight line from the top Egan vertex to the base, bisecting it. Travel one third of the way up that line directly towards the top vertex, and that would be about where Chris Moriarty appears to fit in. Fans of that sort of thing should definitely give it a look.

In a situation that is a little similar to that in Dune, one planet is incredibly important to human communication and transportation, as an organic reef-life entity actually grows Bose-Einstein condensates. The Great Barrier Reef is mentioned in comparison in the novel. They are used for some of that handy really quick communication and travel, and are also a non-renewable resource.

The main character here gets in the middle of a lot of vicious competing interests, much like one of Richard Morgan's, and is an outsider woman looked at as a bit of a freak, because she has genetic modifications. Suspicious murders and AI on top of all this

The book is maybe a little long, but the end I think is enough to just scrape it in to 4 territory, especially given the interesting bibliography that she has put together on quantum theory, at the end.

Certainly a writer to keep an eye on if this is only a first book.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/08/spin-state-chris-moriarty.html ( )