Our next book club reading: Madeline Ashby, Company Town

Our near-future science fiction book club continues!  Nearly 50 of you voted on our next reading, which is great.

The leading candidates, based on our giant list of near-future sf, were: Madeline Ashby, Company Town; Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age; Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End , Close behind was Andy Weir’s The Martian.  After much mulling, I hereby announce….

…Madeline Ashby, Company Town (Amazon).  This looks like a fascinating novel about changing bodies, gender roles, economics, and society.

Here’s the official description:

New Arcadia is a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd. Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bio-engineered enhancements. As such, she’s the last truly organic person left on the rig–making her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire.

Still, her expertise in the arts of self-defense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?

Sounds good?  Grab a copy and start reading!

I’ve got a long plane flight today, and am looking forward to firing up the Kindle up.  I’ll emit a first blog post early next week.

Thanks for all votes and suggestions.  Enjoy diving into another vision of the near future.

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