Hundreds of years in the future, humanity has grown beyond the confines of earth to occupy many worlds in their part of the galaxy. But then an alien species, the Flense, show up and decide they want the same worlds for themselves. It isn’t really a war. With vastly superior technology, the Flense can simply take what they want. They’re not really interested in wiping out humanity, but those who can’t or won’t leave the worlds the Flense want are killed without mercy. The scattered remains of humanity are left with just a few isolated refuges, on worlds that are too hot, too cold, or simply too inhospitable to interest the Flense.
One of those worlds is Frostbite, a frozen rock where the small human colony lives in a hollowed out mountain. Rogan is what passes for the city’s mailman. He maintains the sophisticated antenna which provides the tenuous link with other refuges, downloads the daily batches of messages and distributes them to their intended recipients. It’s a hard life, which requires him to venture out onto the ice almost daily to maintain the equipment and download the messages, but it’s all Rogan has ever known. He has a close circle of friends, and the colony is very much like any small town, where everybody knows everybody.
But Rogan wants more, although he isn’t absolutely sure what it is. Through the network he maintains, Rogan has connected with Nathe, a man working on a project that may help humanity burst out of its isolation. Rogan and Nathe share more than a common technical interest. Despite the vast distance which separates them, they connect on a very emotional level. So, when Nathe announces that he’s convinced the project to offer a place for Rogan, he knows he has to accept, even though nobody has ever left Frostbite before. He gets passage on the next trading ship that calls on the colony, and then his adventure begins.
“Chasing Cold” is ‘hard’ science fiction in the mold of the classics, but with a definite gay twist. It does an excellent job of building worlds that are believable, and populated by realistic, multi-dimensional characters. The first quarter of the book is taken up getting to know Rogan and his extended family, so that by the time he makes the decision to leave, we really understand all that he is giving up and how hard it is for him. So, yeah, guys hundreds of years from now are still hooking up on what evolves from the Internet. It’s quite believable in the context of the story, and is probably quite understandable for a number of readers.
Most of the story takes place aboard the trading ship which will take Rogan to Nathe, and here again we have a cast of well-rounded characters who make up the crew. Some of their banter will definitely have you laughing out loud. But there are also many serious moments, when mankind’s tenuous grip on survival becomes ever more apparent.
In many ways, “Chasing Cold” is about the journey Rogan makes, rather than a romance. It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that Rogan does make it to Nathe, but that part of the story is more of an epilogue which ends the book without leaving any loose ends.
The text had more than a few proofing errors, although not so many as to detract from the reading. While the world-building is generally very good, there were a couple of small issues that didn’t quite fit. These were minor things that didn’t really distract you from the story but did make you wonder. For example, why does Rogan have to go out to the antenna to collect the message data, couldn’t they just run a cable? They get diagnostic information from the equipment, so they know when something is broken, so why can’t they just retrieve the message data remotely. It’s not uncommon for little questions like this to pop up in science fiction, and it really doesn’t pull you out of the story.
You can find out more about the author, Stephen Graham King, at his web site. The book may be purchased from Amazon
