Moriarty, Chris
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1968- ) US author whose Spin sequence of high-tech Space Operas – comprising Spin State (2003), Spin Control (2006), which won the Philip K Dick Award in 2007, and Ghost Spin (2013) – expertly embeds genuinely hard Hard SF concepts in a narrative dominated by a fast-mouthed female protagonist named Li with Cyberpunk-derived street-cred. The underlying premise – "quantum entanglements", possible at just a little above absolute zero, can motor AIs of immense power as well as enabling a form of interstellar Transportation closely akin to Matter Transmission – is smothered at times by the action; but Moriarty is a deft stylist, and her rendering of a love affair between the Genetically Engineered protagonist and one of the avatar-like human "shunts" operated/inhabited by an immensely powerful AI named Cohen is engaging. The storylines of the two volumes so far of the series tend to default to noir tropes as Li and Cohen trace down sabotage that may shake various worlds apart. In the background, an abiding awareness that devastating Climate Change has created a Ruined Earth, and that Homo sapiens may be about to wreck more planets, imbues the tales so far with some due sobriety. More work from Moriarty is expected.
The NYPD Inquisitor sequence opening with The Inquisitor's Apprentice (2011) blends historical fantasy and police-procedural tropes in a Magic-infested alternate New York of 1900; in the first book the life of Thomas Alva Edison is threatened. [JC]
Chris Moriarty
born 1968
works
series
Spin
- Spin State (New York: Bantam Spectra, 2003) [Spin: pb/Stephen Youll]
- Spin Control (New York: Bantam Spectra, 2006) [Spin: pb/Stephen Youll]
- Ghost Spin (New York: Bantam Spectra, 2013) [Spin: pb/Stephen Youll]
NYPD Inquisitor
- The Inquisitor's Apprentice (New York: Harcourt Children's Books, 2011) [NYPD Inquisitor: hb/Mark Edward Geyer]
- The Watcher in the Shadows (New York: Harcourt Children's Books, 2013) [NYPD Inquisitor: hb/Mark Edward Geyer]
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