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by(Bantam, US$7, 372 pages, paperback; December 2003; ISBN: 0553586580.)Review byRating: "A-". A gritty Stablefordian Cal-biotech hard-SF future, and an exceptionally fine first novel.Clade is set 50 years after a catastrophic ecological collapse, the 'ecocaust', a human-caused mass-extinction right up there with the "Big 5" worst in Earth's history. Civilization was saved by heavy-handed reengineering of the biosphere, but at a cost of billions of lives lost, and a tightly-regimented social setup. Budz does a nice job of worldbuilding in Clade, and handles the ambiguous costs and benefits of new technology very well indeed.
Decent hard-SF that makes a serious attempt to extrapolate the medium-term future is never in oversupply. This is my favorite kind of SF, so I was very pleased to discover Clade. There are, unsurprisingly, some first-novel rough spots here, particularly with the thriller-style plot, which suffers from some heavy-handed auctorial hammering-to-fit -- but, hey, you'll happily put up with a few warts for the technically-sweet payoffs in Clade. Budz is clearly an author to watch. A sequel, Crache, is promised for Fall 2004. I'm looking forward to it. Budz, a Silicon Valley technical writer with training in physics and engineering, is married to respected fantasy writer Marina Fitch. Fitch helped Budz polish his ms.: "Marina's good at characters and finding loopholes in story consistency," he said. Author website: www.markbudz.com More reviews:
Happy reading!
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