The Jazz

by Melissa Scott

A well written relatively near future SF book, with heroes you can root for and good plausibility. While it’s not among the first books I’d recommend, it’s better than many.

The Jazz is a book that survives on its plausibility. The setting is a mild dystopia, near future (as few as 20 years out perhaps), with slightly stronger corporations, but nothing as difficult to swallow as Snow Crash or Cyberpunk.

The characters the author draws are interesting; they often appear a bit shallow until you get to wander around with them for a while. Keyz gets himself in a lot of hot water for ‘accidentally’ stealing cutting edge tech. Tin Lizzie, a woman he barely knows, abandons her life to protect and position him. While this seems too convenient at first, the author does a good job of revealing background that makes her motivations authentic.

The world is relatively standard near future– there’s an immersive internet but not a lot of cyberware. The Jazz is a very interesting concept; it’s an evolution of spam, spin, and hacker exclusion– it works, as do the characters’ relationships to each other in the Jazz subculture.

All of that said, there are harder to swallow bits, like neo-barbarians and the like, that put this future further out– it’s hard to see them coming about, but perhaps she simply foresees more clearly than I. In any case, the book is quick and light, with engaging characters and an authentic premise.

Data:
The Jazz
by Melissa Scott
Hardcover: 316 pages
Publisher: Tor Books; 1st ed edition (June 1, 2000)
ISBN: 0312868022