Spin State (2004)

by Chris Moriarty

Series: Spin Series (1)

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Showing 1-5 of 13 (next | show all)

SF,unread

romsfuulynn | Apr 28, 2013 |

This is no hard SF. The physics presented here are not beliveable... Not recommended for hard SF fans. (

)

Knusper2000 | May 18, 2012 |

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2008-11.html#spin (

)

cshalizi | Sep 26, 2009 |

Possible spoiler alert.

Despite the title and the multiple back references to Quantum Physics, the novel doesn't strike me as "hard sci-fi" at all, more like a typical character driven space opera masquerading as hard sci-fi. The storyline seems at times implausible and convoluted: For example... (1) Li, a soldier with lapses in memory, is sent by the Security Council to investigate the murder of Sharifi and disruption of mining operations. If the mining operations are so important, how about a team of professional investigators and a batallion of peacekeepers for backup? (2) Why would mining of such an essential resource be leased out to some shady company in the first place, especially if there are suspicions of dealings with the Syndicates? (3) A love affair with an A.I.? Ahem. Despite somewhat convoluted plot, it was a decent read and a good debut novel. (

)

betula.alba | Aug 9, 2009 |

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. (

)

klh | Apr 8, 2009 |

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Series (with order)

Spin Series (1)

Canonical title

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

2004

People/Characters

Information from the German Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.

Catherine Li

Important places

Information from the Norwegian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.

Space

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Related movies

Awards and honors

Gaylactic Spectrum Shortlist (Novel, 2004)

Gaylactic Spectrum Shortlist (Novel, 2007)

Lambda Literary Award Nominee (Science Fiction/Fantasy, 2006)

Philip K. Dick Award Finalist (2003)

(show all 6 items)

Epigraph

Then we encountered a leopard-man who was rumoured to be a cannibal. He must not have thought we looked good to eat; he smiled and let himself be photographed like a veteran tourist guide. After that I started asking everyone where we could meet real cannibals. I wanted to see them, know them.
  "They exist," my hosts told me

  "But where?"

  "No one knows. But there's nothing special about them. You can't even tell them apart from normal people."

  "Ah, but I have to know them, eat with them! I want to eat a person. Just to taste. Just to taste it!"

        -- Louis Lachenal, Vertigo Notebooks

Dedication

First words

They cold-shipped her out, flash-frozen, body still bruised from the last-minute upgrades.

Quotations

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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

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Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0553586246, Mass Market Paperback)

In her debut novel, the terrific thriller Spin State, Chris Moriarty melds cutting-edge science with post-cyberpunk fiction and neo-noir suspense to create a complex, believable future inhabited by one of the most intriguing characters in modern science fiction.

Major Catherine Li is a veteran United Nations Peacekeeper in a future of world-nations. Humanity has spread across interstellar space by "jumping": teleportation enabled by quantum physics and a bizarre crystal found only on Compson's World. The jumps destroy memory, so jumpers back up their memories on computer. Despite this precaution, frequent jumpers still lose some memories, a fact that poses a far greater problem for Catherine Li than it does for other Peacekeepers. For Li has a dangerous, potentially deadly secret: she's an illegal clone.

When a UN mission goes awry, Li finds herself shipped on solo duty to Compson's World--her home world, to which she'd vowed never to return. Her mission initially seems simple: to determine if the death of brilliant physicist Hannah Sharifi was a crystal-mining accident or cold-blooded murder. Like Li, Sharifi is a clone--in fact, she's Li's genetic twin. Li swiftly finds herself enmeshed in the intertangled politics of the UN, the multiplanetary corporations, the miners, and the human-created Artificial Intelligences, who have enigmatic agendas of their own. --Cynthia Ward

(retrieved from Amazon Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:12:57 -0500)

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▾Library descriptions

UN Peacekeeper Major Catherine Li hides her true identity as an illegal clone, until a perilous mission takes her back to her brutal planet of origin to investigate the death of a renowned scientist, Li's genetic twin.