Night Sky Mine

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Recipient of two successive Lambda Awards for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Novel (for Trouble and Her Friends, 1994, and for Shadow Man, 1995), Scott here presents a well-developed future rife with cybertechnology, space travel, artificial habitats and asteroid mining. The primary cyber-innovations in this era are hammals, computer programs that function independently, devour each other, reproduce and mutate. Useful but dangerous, they are farmed, captured and altered by hypothecaries and others. The plot line evolves from the mysterious abandonment by its crew of an asteroid owned by the Night Sky Mine company. Cops Rangsey Justine and his male "contracted partner," Sein Tarasov, are drawn into the investigation, as is Kelly 2/1 Ista, found on a similarly abandoned mine and raised by the gypsy-like Travellers. Each character is charming yet fallible, expertly drawn; when the mystery occasionally thins or the action seems forced, they carry the story. Along their way, Scott uses them to raise challenging questions about friendship, responsibility, the nature of technology. Again, Scott explores the ramifications of virtual life through the very human eyes of her principals; this is most artful cyberpunk, told with heart. (Aug.)

Library Journal

Ista, found abandoned as a two-year-old on an asteroid mining platformthe Night Sky Minesearches for her identity. The 14-year-old hooks up with two undercover patrol officers, out to solve the string of attacks on mining ships. Scott creates a bleak world of caste stratification crossed with a cyberspace containing artificial intelligence straining to break free. One of the better cyberpunk novels; highly recommended.

Kirkus Reviews

Scott's Shadow Man (1995) seriously probed the basis of sexual identity and politics, to the relative neglect of character and plot; the author's new venture, a solidly crafted far-future cyberspace yarn, begins on planet Bestla, where cops (and lovers) Justin Rangsey of External Affairs and Sein Tarasov of the Technical Squad, are assigned by Devora Macbeth of the elite Patrol to investigate why an orbiting mine complex was abandoned, puzzlingly, by its crew. Local cyberspace, the "invisible world," has spawned evolving, reproducing, independently interacting programs called "hamals"; these, charmingly, mimic the behavior and appearance of plants and animals. Rangsey and Tarasov proceed, undercover, to the Orbital Agglomeration, where they meet Ista Kelly, an orphan found on another abandoned mine years ago. A series of such incidents has occurred, it emerges, with the details having been suppressed by the Night Sky Mine Co. Ista, an apprentice "hypothecary," trawls through the invisible world in search of programs that can be tamed, neutered, edited, and put to work—but all hypothecaries fear the eventual appearance of a "demogorgon," an AI precursor program so powerful that it will gobble up the invisible world and any other computer net it has access to. The investigators discover that a highly placed conspiracy within NSMCo is using the captured mines to breed feral programs; and, so Ista suspects, they may have already accidentally created a demogorgon.

Mature, balanced, absorbing work, with a richly detailed, enchanting backdrop: something of a breakthrough in overall technique, and Scott's best so far.