Hot on the heels of my review of Altered Carbon (more because I was so slow writing that review than that I was able to read the next book quickly) I bring you my review of Spin State by Chris Moriarty.

Because I read these books back to back, and because they are both debut novels, I’m going to draw a lot of comparisons and contrasts between the two.

Like Altered Carbon, Spin State is: a debut novel, a mystery, cyberpunk, and explores some interesting moral issues. In both, the UN is nominally in charge of human space, and humans are the only intelligent life discovered thus far.

Spin State is definitely the edgier of the two though, where AC is a fairly straightforward hard-boiled detective novel, I found that SS explored less familiar territory (at least for me) – a bi, female protagonist who’s best friend is an A.I. who switches genders, and plays the gender role, simply by shunting into a new person (who gets paid to be available for such). The A.I.s in it were more powerful in the society, nearly possessing citizenship, and we learn a good bit of their culture and lifestyle through one of the main characters who is an A.I. The science is also much ‘harder’ in State: both in the sense of there being more of it and it being more difficult conceptually – most people have a better intuitive grasp of cloning and transferring a consciousness into a new body than quantum mechanics.

All in all, I loved this book. There are only two points I’m going to ding it on. First, the hard science is going to be difficult for some people to get past. That said, Rachel, who is not very science literate read the book and still enjoyed it muchly, however, it did detract somewhat for her. Second, I found it confusing at times figuring out where scenes were, though I got better at it a the book went on – through faster than light (FTL) communication, shunting and virtual environments it was hard to keep track of at times.

What I liked most was the human aspect of it. The main character, Catherine Li, is certainly not without her foibles, and her relationships with others, particular with the A.I. Cohen, are complex and layered – as most ‘real’ relationships are.

Beyond the characters and their relationships, I found several other things I liked. I thought that the economy of FTL travel, which was central to the plot, was well done, and reminiscent of Dune: one planet is the source of it. However, in State FTL travel has its price. Because of the quantum mechanical nature of it, users of it lose parts of their memory. ::Melange:: with a hell of a twist. The nature and culture of A.I.s, which I thought was very interesting and well done. Lastly, I thought having Spanish as the lingua franca of UN space was a nice touch. Frankly, English is a horribly inconsistent and difficult language to learn, compared to it Spanish is like a dream – it makes sense as ‘common’ tongue from that standpoint at least.

In many ways I want to compare Chris Moriarty to M. John Harrison. Based on her one novel, and the two of Harrison’s I’ve read, they like to address the human condition in unusual and trying circumstances, and they like to drop you right into the story and let you figure it out on your own, with out tons of distracting expositon (and I’m thinking specifically of Sunlight which drove me batty with too much exposition).

So, if you are looking for a hard scifi/cyberpunk novel, or a great human story and can deal with a hard scifi setting, go grab a copy of Spin State.