ISBN ?, (US hbk),,, 0-812-53626-6 (US pbk)

"An unforgettable vision of America transfigured by a new and utterly apocalyptic technology.

"Greg Bear's Blood Music is perhaps the only other novel to have dealt so unflinchingly with the paradigm-shattering possibilities of a functioning nanotech. If a science fiction writer's job is to conceive the inconceivable, Goonan has arrived with an immaculate version of the traditional toolkit -- and the nerve to use it hard." --William Gibson.

"A first novelist of enormous talent and energy... she grounds her apocalyptic vision in a few short, finely detailed scenes that reveal how personal failings can become writ large in the great events of history." -- (in The New York Times ).

"In the hands of Kathleen Ann Goonan, the science of science fiction becomes something lyrical and vividly human, and the intricately imagined future she presents is thus rendered completely plausible and poignant in the extreme.

"Queen City Jazz is hands down the best first novel I've read in the genre in the past ten years." --Lucius Shepard.

"Spectacular...The most obvious comparison is with an earlier nanotech masterpiece, Greg Bear's Blood Music , but Goonan moves far beyond Bear's horrorstory scenario and shows that the possibilities of this theme are at least as powerful as those of SF's more popular current preoccupation, virtual reality. Queen City Jazz is a first novel of startling virtuosity and complexity, and almost certainly the most important debut novel I've seen this year." -- (in Locus ).

"Goonan's achievement with this first book is impressive, despite any minor flaws. It is certain that no reader will ever regret accompanying Verity on her fascinating journey of self-discovery, nor forget it. Goonan's deep wisdom in envisioning and depicting the strange future in wait for us is contained in the statement by one of the pre-Flower characters: 'All the very bad and the very good scenarios will come true, only we won't know which is which until later'." --Paul Di Filippo (in SF Eye, Issue #14, Spring 1996)

"There are essentially two parts to the story. The beginning takes place in the countryside, the rest takes place in the City. It's roughly 50 to 60 years into our future. Nanotechnology has transformed things, but something went very wrong.

"This is not an entirely seamless tale. There are a few spots which didn't quite sit right with me (and a number of textual errors). But when she's cruisin' the streets of a nano-active Cincinnati, things really begin to flow. Identity is the driving issue... and the road isn't always self-healing.

"Nice references throughout... from Billie Holiday to Bucky Fuller. Errudite as well as entertaining. And (like in quite a few new science fiction books) dance crops into it. Good work, Ms Goonan." --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 14 February 1996).