Darkship Thieves by Sarah Hoyt / WWW: Wake by Robert Sawyer
I mention these books in tandem, because (1) I saw them both on John Scalzi's blog and (2) I put them in a single order during the Amazon/Macmillan fistfight, and (3) I read them back to back. Well, more precisely, I just finished reading Darkship Thieves and am currently reading WWW: Wake. But I'm a fast reader.
In WWW: Wake, the heroine has an argument with her teacher about whether Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is science fiction. The teacher says of course it's not, or it wouldn't be taught in school!
But what strikes me, moving quickly from Hoyt to Sawyer, as if I am stepping off an escalator in a department store from the lingerie floor to the techno section, is how flexible SF is these days. Darkship Thieves is practically a bodice ripper, albeit with a heroine who can seriously kick butt, and with bodices that can be repaired in a trice with something called vibro. Despite the adventure and tangential subplots, this story is as reassuring as any romance by Kathleen Woodiwiss. You know that in the end, the hero and heroine will sail off (in their spaceship) into the sunset.
Moving off the escalator to the electronics department, the livejournal narrative of an engaging blind girl -- who is neither deaf nor a pinball wizard, but is a whiz at math-- is interspersed with a gripping account of the H5N1 bird virus that is spreading alarmingly through rural China. I'm reminded of Caroline Cooley's taught thrillers. I'm not sure how the plots will intertwine,but since our heroine is getting an operation in Japan right now, and that virus is next door in China, I'm sure they will mix. And I will certainly keep reading. But SF has really wide universe and there's something in it for everyone.
