Blackfish City

3.25 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Blackfish City is an imaginative and richly rendered novel about a floating city and its diverse inhabitants. I was immediately intrigued by the setting, which author Sam J. Miller builds from the ground (or seafloor) up by illustrating the physical makeup of the city, how people navigate its socioeconomically segregated divisions, and even down to invented sports that have flourished in the metal beam laden metropolis.

The chapters rotate between the POVs of five-ish characters who are all distinct and compelling in their own ways. Once the character storylines converge, though, their unique narratives are abandoned in service of the main storyline that feels significantly less captivating than what came before it. I had been invested in the individual stories, but tying them so tidily together does a disservice to the unique threads that had been crafted in the first part of the novel.

Overall, this is a well-written novel, with a cool setting, and while it hooked me in the earlygoing it never quite reeled me in.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.