5 November 2003

REVIEW: Spin State by Chris Moriarty
Bantam Spectra, September 2003
Reviewed by A.M. Dellamonica
www.sff.net/people/alyx/

A.M. Dellamonica's fiction began appearing in print in 1986. Her stories can be currently found in The Year's Best SF#8, Mojo: Conjure Stories, and LAND/SPACE—an anthology of Prairie Science Fiction. Forthcoming fiction includes "The Dream Eaters," out in Summer 2004 in The Faery Reel, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, "The Children of Port Allain," coming to On Spec Magazine and "The Illuminated Heretic," in Alternate Generals III. She also writes book reviews for Science Fiction Weekly and Locus Magazine. A member of the Broad Universe Motherboard, Alyx lives in Canada and is married to Kelly Robson.

Chris Moriarty's debut novel deftly weaves action and a highly unusual romance into the fabric of a complex futuristic mystery. Her heroine is Major Catherine Li, a tough and resourceful veteran of a war fought by Earth against breakaway designer-human cultures known as the Syndicates. In peacetime, this seasoned combat officer finds herself exiled to Compton's World, a planet whose mines are the only source of the crystals that enable faster-than-light travel, by managing the information matrix of a complex web of quantum wormholes.

Li is sent to solve the murder of an eminent scientist, but the politically charged assignment is far from her only problem. The author gleefully weighs down her protagonist with troubles big and small. Li has a past life on Compton's World that could destroy her entire career if it comes to light, for one thing, not to mention a relationship with the murder victim she must keep hidden at all costs.

Recent history has brought a number of outstanding women warriors into the mainstream of military SF, characters like Tanya Huff's Torin Kerr, Kristine Smith's Jani Kilian, and Elizabeth Moon's Heris Serrano. Such characters have a number of common traits—often in disgrace with their superiors, they are combat-skilled and resourceful on an individual basis but function well in leadership roles. Li fits into this mold perfectly—tough and charismatic, she comes equipped with the mandatory murky past and a talent for doing her job brilliantly. Li is pursued throughout Spin State by an amorous AI named Cohen, an entity she loves but doesn't quite dare to trust. In choosing a nonhuman lover for her heroine, Moriarty seems to have found a perfect match. Like many of her kick-butt sisters, it seems Li can hardly be expected to make do with someone who is merely mortal.What kind of a man do these women rate? In Spin State, Cohen proves to be nothing short of a super-being: wealthy, sensitive, and handsome, he has centuries of life experience to match up against Li's mere decades.

First-time novelists sometimes approach their story tentatively, but Moriarty shows no such tenderness—multi-layered and intriguing, Spin State is a bravura performance. Readers will find themselves drawn to the emotionally guarded Li, unable to set this novel down until she has solved the crime, faced down the villains, and sorted out the confusing tangle of needs that binds her heart so tightly to darkness.