Best SF Nominee - All City by Alex DiFrancesco
For SF what I’m tending to look for is someone pushing SF in way we haven’t seen before or in a long time. Technology and how it progresses with it is fine but for me I like to see some humanity in the discussion too.
Publisher - Seven Stories Press
Published - Out Now
Price - £12.99 paperback £9.04 Kindle eBook
In a near-future New York City in which both global warming and a tremendous economic divide are making the city unlivable for many, a huge superstorm hits leaving behind only those those who had nowhere else to go and no way to get out. Here Makayla, a 24-year-old woman who works at the convenience store chain that's overtaken the city, and Jesse, a 18-year-old genderqueer anarchist punk who lives in an abandoned IRT station in the Bronx, and an unnamed, mysterious street artist who paints the suffering of those left behind into the world's consciousness, all struggle to rebuild their lives in a city that has left them for dead. When they carve out a small space of reprieve from an abandoned luxury condo, it is only a matter of time before those who own the building come back to claim what is theirs.
One of the biggest looming themes for this century is going to be how we have such huge disparities between Billionaires and the poorest members of society. Go to any city and these groups are probably now next door to each other and nothing gets done. The planet however rarely respects status so as we are seeing in the news what we build can be destroyed. But post apocalypse what happens next? Can we set aside our differences or are we just going to start the same dance as before? This was the question asked of All City by Alex DiFrancesco.
In the relatively near future New York City is in the way of super storm Bernice. The rich have fled and the poor have to hope for the best. On the night of the storm Makayla and her best friend Jaden hide in an apartment watching the waters rise and rise. A trans man Jesse and his friends seek shelter elsewhere in the storm’s wake and the next day the city is a national distaster zone and the authorities do not have control of the situation. In the coming weeks food and power run out; there are people looking to profit or make chaos out of the situation and slowly Makayla ends up creating a potential oasis of safety in a dangerous world. But the old order of the rich want their land back.
I am going to get my biggest niggle out of the way first. I don’t find this a novel with a lot of science fiction elements to it. That’s because this feels so much like the world now though. Climate change disasters are common place and who would trust our current leaders with our safety. Language, a few bits of new technology and a few future historical references didn’t make me feel as if I was in a new place so it’s a novel far more about humanity in a difficult situation than an exploration of how we deal with technology or science. Happily the questions it raises it tries to answer very well.
It’s a fragmented narrative with multiple narrators skill fully discussing their lives before, during and after the storm. Makayla just wants to survive and ends up having to lead and protect; Jesse is used to protests and riots but has to learn to be level headed. There is a third occasional narrator in the form of a rich art loving young woman named Evann who looks at how NYC has developed and how her wonderful lifestyle is being inconvenienced. DiFrancesco has a great ear for character and that’s the strongest part of the novel. A key part of reading is discovering empathy and understanding character’s situations and motives. Here I’m with people of colour and trans activists seeing the world without my privileged eyes and it’s dangerous - people treat you as servants; or something that doesn’t deserve to live or be protected. Getting people to come together may be the only way to survive and that’s a wonderful hopeful message.
The strongest part of the tale for me was the feeling of being in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Moments of hope and the grim battle to survive and then find a way out of a very bleak and dangerous distraction. Getting different viewpoints made the story really work well
But another strength of the story is that DiFrancesco knows realism will always intervene. As the story progresses and just as it appears we may get a shot of hope we see that the past is there to pull people back down. In some ways that is just standard capitalism but a thread I’m less comfortable with the execution is one character’s rape leading to their very extreme choices.
i didn’t object to the way that plot thread planned out but it felt overly rushed in the novel’s final acts. I’d had liked both to see a little ore of how this settlement post storm developed and thrived and more clues to its final state. Instead it feels a little underserved and I’d have loved a few more chapters explaining what happens next. The final story’s coda is also helping to answer some questions but some obvious ones get unanswered.
All City despite these issues though was a fantastic examination of an issue that soon I think will dominate this decade. It’s a worthy nominee and one I think many readers will enjoy.
