In the Drift

I first read Michael Swanwick’s “In the Drift” well over 20 years ago. I had first read part of it as a short story in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1985. The book isn’t so much a novel as a series of related short stories and novellas that are set in a world where the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor near Philadelphia blew up. The drift is the mostly uninhabitable fallout zone that the reactor explosion poisoned. The stories are set about 100 years in the future and span several decades and partially follow some characters such as Keith Piotrowicz through them.

Ace published this as part of a restart of the Ace Science Fiction Specials line and it was in good company with the likes of William Gibson’s show more “Neuromancer”, Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Wild Shore”, and Lucius Shepard’s “Green Eyes”.

I have had mixed luck (mostly poor) re-reading novels that I regarded as classics or nearly so from the past. Some of these “classics” just do not hold up. Although not really an “old” classic, this was a reaffirmation that there are some good novels and stories from the science fiction genre that do hold up over time. I can recommend “In the Drift” as a good read. Swanwick is a good writer. show less

Swanwick, Michael. In the Drift. Ace, 1985.
It seems that every other novel I pick up in these pandemic times is some sort of apocalyptic or postapocalyptic dystopia. Where are the optimistic technologists of the early nuclear age, gone every one, not so long time passing? At any rate, what we have here is a rewrite of the Three-Mile Island nuclear disaster. This time, the meltdown is complete, and it destroys the U. S. economy and turns a good hunk of Pennsylvania into a fallout zone with hotspots and central-casting mutants. A century later, folks in the mean streets of Philadelphia think they are safe, but nope. The first half of the story focusing on a street kid dealing with the Philly crime lords hooked me, but then we jump into show more the future, the kid is a crime lord himself and we are now with a rebel army of mutants. Sigh. Total Recall anyone? show less

Another book from the mid-eighties. I don't know where the copy I owned is hiding. Maybe at a friends basement or storage unit. Hard to come by. Anyone who lived through Three Mile Island (and since Chernobyl and now Fukishima)will appreciate this novel.If TMI went critical Pennsylvania, at least a large part of it would be a "Drift" state now. Especially imaginative was the 'Hummers' as the overriding political establishment in the beginning of the book and folks with "short-gut syndrome". I'll say no more. Try to scare up a copy. It'll be worth the time.

A fixup that needed a bit more fixing.