Michael G. Williams

Genre: far-future SF, neo-noir, synthetic intelligence, social change, cultural change

The Dust Cover Copy

WINNER of the 2019 Manly Wade Wellman Award - presented to the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novel by a NC writer by the NC Speculative Fiction Foundation!

WELCOME TO THE LAST OF THE GREAT FLYING CITIES

It’s 9172, YE (Year of the Empire), and the future has forgotten its past.

Soaring miles over the Earth, Autumn, the sole surviving flying city, is filled to the brim with the manifold forms of humankind: from Human Plus “floor models” to the oppressed and disfranchised underclasses doing their dirty work and every imaginable variation between.

Valerius Bakhoum is a washed-up private eye and street hustler scraping by in Autumn. Late on his rent, fetishized and reviled for his imperfect genetics, stuck in the quicksand of his own heritage, Valerius is trying desperately to wrap up his too-short life when a mythical relic of humanity’s fog-shrouded past walks in and hires him to do one last job. What starts out as Valerius just taking a stranger’s money quickly turns into the biggest and most dangerous mystery he’s ever tried to crack – and Valerius is running out of time to solve it.

Now Autumn’s abandoned history – and the monsters and heroes that adorn it – are emerging from the shadows to threaten the few remaining things Valerius holds dear. Can the burned-out detective navigate the labyrinth of lies and maze of blind faith around him to save the City of Autumn from its greatest myth and deadliest threat as he navigates his feelings for his newest client, the handsome golem Alejandro?

The Scene

Worldbuilding

This book takes you there from page 1, on which our main character is drinking sake and staking out his mark. By page 5, our PI has been picked up by a cabbie who’s a Rat. No, really. A Man-Animal Hybrid. Genes are adjusted as easily as clothes for the right price and the right people in this world. And this has brought out myriad facets and stratified a new society: there’s the Mannies on the bottom, bred to serve humanity. There are the Artisanal Humans right in the middle of the social structure, kept as a genetic reservoir and a living museum population. There are the many levels of Human Plus, all of them showing off their wealth with the newest genetic tweak. There are powerful AI Golems that might have been human, once. It depends on who you ask. There are religious sects that revere the untampered perfection of what is ‘natural’, and opposing religions sure that the next gene splice will banish all our woes. There might even be Angels, somewhere. And there are stories. So many stories. Stories of a glorious past and a grievous fall from grace of ancestors only barely remembered. Terrible stories of cities falling from the sky and Angels bent on vengeance. All this is wrapped in some really entrancing ideas for future tech, the mechanics of a flying city, and prose that is half op-ed and half love letter on big city living in all its grunge and glory. It’s a story about the stories we tell ourselves and the lies we want to believe. It’s a story about getting there, and getting by. And maybe, sometimes, getting lucky.

The Crowd

Characterization

Valerius is my favorite sort of access character: a witty, wry, shop soiled and streetwise gumshoe with a heart of gold that he keeps under very careful wraps. He knows all the ropes, and that makes him understand everybody just trying to make it, any way they can.

Around him are well-realized characters who create a tapestry of interpersonal connections that make a world real and vibrant. The motivations of characters who think they are improving the world, protecting their own identities, and sometimes just making it through the day are all very understandable. As a reader, I could empathize with all the points of view, though some of them repelled me even as their logic worked. When an author can pull that off, they’ve done their characterization right.

The Lingo

Writing Style

By turns witty, lyrical, and knife-edged, the style of this book is beautifully balanced. It’s at once a great neo-noir story, an ode to city living, and a condemnation of urban discontent. A surprisingly humane LGBT subplot keeps this story from becoming a purely procedural whodunnit, adding a depth and humanity to the story that lifts it to a slightly higher realm than your run of the mill neo-noir. And all of that is wrapped in flowing prose that flirts with poetry, and makes the story a joy to read. Just take a look at this:

At the center of it is Lotta’s Gift, which in theory is a fountain memorializing Imperial forces lost in wars against the Eastern Expanse, but in practice is where everyone goes on the birthdays of the dead they mourn. The fountain isn’t what that word normally means: a big pool of water with a source in the middle. Instead, it’s a tall, iron spire, nearly eight meters high at its top. Around its four sides are sculpted mouths of ancient beasts of myth: giant cats, with water shooting out of spouts to be collected in their lower jaws. I’ve read the ancients used to throw pennies into fountains to commemorate the dead, but at Lotta’s, we drink from the water rather than throw something in. The story goes that by drinking from that water, we quench the thirst of the departed for the pleasures of the quick. The water always tastes better to me there than anywhere else in Autumn, and Autumn is a City with very good water.

Yeah, after reading that, I want to walk in these streets. Well, some of them, anyway.

The Moves

Plot

An intricately plotted story that explores and at times deconstructs the concepts of cultural and personal narrative, the truth, and the idea of myth while it keeps its protagonist on his toes. It’s a multi-layered narrative, and that’s what gives it power. At points I found myself thinking ‘so, the mystery here is an existence worth the living. Can that be solved?’

I still can’t tell you the answer to that. But this book will be glad to offer you the chance to try.

Overall Rating

This is a truly powerful book. It’s an energetic mystery. It’s a love story. And in the end, it’s something more: an intricate, powerful, and ultimately uplifting tale about choosing the story you live in, and what character you’re going to be within it.

Grab your copy. You’ll be glad you did.