Dreaming in Smoke Book

Trica Sullivan's SFnovel debut was Lethe (1995), which was followed by Someone To Watch Over Me (1997): this is her third book. It drops readers in at the deep end with a truly bizarre opening that turns out to be heroine Kalypso Deed's surreal perception of a major crash in the AI computer to which she's linked ... and which she should have been guarding. Unfortunately this machine runs the main human outpost on T'Nane, a watery colony world with a strange and poisonous biosphere. As things fall apart, Kalypso finds herself sailing alien seas as captive of an almost literally mad scientist who plans to bridge the gap between Earthly and T'Nane biology--using her as an unwilling experimental subject. Painful episodes follow, described with clinical detachment. T'Nane's exotic ecology is richly imagined, as are the surreal metaphors of cyberspatial interfacing with the mysteriously mutating AI core. Various human factions argue and grumble at occasionally tiresome length; Kalypso herself is a moody, passive heroine who does rather little except when bullied by others. But the writing is excellent and the ultimate biological revelations (though familiar in outline from much past SF) feel satisfying and right. Sullivan remains a writer to watch. --David LangfordRead More