Question for the LJ brain trust

[magid]

Which sf books/stories are set in Boston?

Huzzah for a post-Arisia snow day!

ETA: The reason for the question is that I'm thinking of putting together a self-guided walking tour of Boston as seen in sf (also, possibly other local towns, given enough material).

Comments

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

Zodiac, Infinite Jest (both questionably SF, but I'd say they squeak through)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I knew I'd read something Boston-based by Stephenson, and couldn't come up with Zodiac. I'll have to check out Infinite Jest.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Spectacle Island, though much different than he describes (whew!) will be open to the public next summer, we hope! Much of IJ, OTOH, takes place in a town where no actual town is. Lemuel shattuck hospital features, though.

[magid.livejournal.com]

More harbor islands are going to be open to the public this summer? How incredibly cool!

I figure that made-up-generic-Boston I would leave more as a possible read on a list, whereas identifiable-Boston (even if future and morphed somehow, but still recognizable locations) could be put into an actual walking tour.

My original thought was to list places with quotes, linking them in a geographically useful (ie circuit) sort of way.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Spectacle was supposed to be open this past summer, but there have been problems with the visitor's center, the landfill leachate collection system, etc. Even so, it's a far cry from the wasteland in Zodiac.

I thought I had a copy of FutureBoston but I can't find it. Lots of recognizable places in there.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

There's a whole collection of short stories set in the same future called FUTURE BOSTON.

The classic "A Subway Called Moebius" by AJ Deutch is all about the Boston subway system.

Those are the first two that come to my mind.

Some of my stories have also been set in Boston or Brookline, or partly so...if you want that list, I'll provide it, but it seemed a little self-serving to me, which is why I'm not just posting that here.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pointers. I know I've heard something about a funky Boston subway situation, but I thought it was some kind of filk, not a story. *scribbling notes to self*

And your list of stories is very welcome.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Now that I look, the only stories of mine I can think of set in the Boston area are "The Quantum Teleporter" (a murder at the Media Lab) and "Reality Check" (set in Brookline, Cambridge, and Texas). Hm.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

The editor of Future Boston, David Alexander Smith, was trying to create a shared future history of Boston. His novel In the Cube is set in the same milieu (and, I believe, was the end of the project).

[magid.livejournal.com]

Hee! I just found that on the list MAB referenced. It sounds like a cool project.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Based on the list of Boston-based lit you gave me, I found a number of promising leads. Most of these I haven't heard of before, so I'm mostly guessing from the one-line descriptions that they'd be relevant.
(Notes in parens from the site; notes in brackets mine)

Atwood, Margaret. A Handmaid's Tale (1986) [Yeah, it's Cambridge, but what a classic...]

Dubois, Brendan. Resurrection Day ("Boston after a nuclear war, but in a patrallel universe, set in the early 1970s")

Marano, Michael. Dawn Song (sci-fi, 1990, a Succubus arrives in Boston)

Stratton, Robin L. Raising the Pentagon: Three Ancient Socerers Caught in a Time Warp Find Themselves in 20th Century Boston: A New Age Adventure (1990) [Not really sure about this one, but.]

Arellano, Robert. Fast Eddie, King of the Bees (2001) (" near-future dystopia, a future Boston")

Mills, Christopher. "Kill Me in the Morning." (2001) (vampire fiction) 9 Mar. 2002

Popkes, Steven, Slow Lightning (1993) (space station orphan lives with aunt in Boston)

Robinson, Kim Stanley. "Glacier." In Robin Scott Wilson. Paragons: Twelve Master Science Fiction Writers Ply Their Craft. [Maybe sf, maybe not.]

Smith, David Alexander, ed. Future Boston (1994) ("a new novel created by an ongoing workshop by eight Boston-area writers, it's the 21st c. and the city is the only port of entry on Earth for interstellar commerce")

-----. In the Cube (1993) ("a science fiction detective yarn set in a future Boston literally crawling with wierd aliens.")

----- and Resa Nelson, "The Last Out." In 2041, ed. Jane Yolen

[gingicat]

Pretty much all of Neal Stephenson's early work.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Cool. I'll have to check it out.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd say ZODIAC isn't even borderline; it's sort of an East Coast version of THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG. (And it mostly takes place elsewhere, e.g., vs polluters in NJ.) THE BIG U., another early Stephenson, is maybe--near-future, in something that I'm told is recognizably BU if you already know BU. MAGAZINE BEACH also wanders, but is definitely SF.

The obvious anthology is FUTURE BOSTON, edited by David Alexander Smith (result of a writers' group he lead some years ago); he also has a solo, IN THE CUBE (?). Both are based on a future in which the sea level has risen, so I'm not sure how much walkable Boston you can find in them. (cf Clement's THE NITROGEN FIX, in which Great Blue Hill is the nearest dry land to where Boston used to be.)

One oddball/borderline: IT HAPPENED IN BOSTON? -- I'm still not sure whether the viewpoint character is actually dealing with a demon or just massively hallucinating. It was written a few decades back and he's somewhat old-fashioned, so it probably uses a number of places that don't exist any more, but it's entirely in and next to downtown Boston.

Minor connection: the first book chronologically (5th published) in Julian May's psionic future history has a scene allegedly at the 1992 Boskone -- IFF Boskone had stayed large enough to use the Sheraton's basement parking lot for the Dealers' Room. (Not just alternate history but mythical, as the lot was temporary function space during the Hynes reconstruction.) (One hardcover, split into THE SURVEILLANCE and THE METACONCERT in paper.)

Much of Ben Bova's THE WEATHERMAKERS happens in and around MIT, as does some of his later novel about the advent of e-books; not sure how much was in Boston. Ditto a Haldeman (TOOL OF THE TRADE?). (Sorry about the inspecifics -- I'm working from memory and a raw copy of my library db.)

/CHip

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions, and they're specific enough that I think I'll be able to find them.

I hadn't known that the Hynes basement parking lot was ever function space; how bizarre.

[ckd]

Zodiac has some very Boston bits, though as CHip notes, the action moves to NJ for a time. The description of bicycling in Boston is great, as is the bit where they're navigating by going down all those streets that they've been told "don't go that way, you'll wind up in Roxbury". The Big U is very very very Silber-era BU; I went there a few years after Neal did.

Tool of the Trade has some Boston/Cambridge as well, but is somewhat dated; both Central Square (Cambridge) and the Combat Zone aren't what they were when Haldeman wrote the book.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't mind having somewhat dated depictions; people can imagine what was based on an excerpt, perhaps.

(And yes, Central and the Combat Zone have radically changed; I remember when I didn't go through Central after dark, and avoided the Combat Zone when alone.)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

If you count Robin Cook, there's Acceptable Risk (http://www.penguinputnam.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,0_0425151867,00.html), which connects ergotism (http://www.apsnet.org/education/LessonsPlantPath/ergot/HISTORY.HTM) to the Salem Witch Trials.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I haven't really thought about what counts and what doesn't, so probably.

I hadn't heard of ergotism before; interesting reading. Thanks. (and it would totally make sense as an explanation for the hysteria in Salem.)

[ceo]

It's only sort-of SF, but Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver starts in 18th-century Boston. It features the "Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technologickal Arts", which is located pretty much where MIT is now (or close enough, considering the land MIT is on didn't exist then).

[magid.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thank you.

I'm starting to think there should be a special MIT booklist!

[visage.livejournal.com]

It certainly pops up in enough SF. I seem to recall Benford novels (The Artifact, for example) periodically stopping in at MIT.

But MIT is usually more of a pit-stop than a setting, from what I'm remembering.

[ckd]

Not a book, but Infocom's game "The Lurking Horror" has a recognizably MIT-inspired layout. Dave Lebling explains.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent. That makes me want to stay up and find a tunnel tour some pre-dawn...

Though I've been local for over a decade, the only vaguely off-limit tunnels I've been in were at Princeton (in company of a cousin who was a student there at the time).

[cme]

Hi. seborn pointed me here. There's a self-published scifi book I'm really fond of set in Boston called Acts of the Apostles by John Sundman. It may be hard to find a paper copy, but digital copies are available for free from the author's website.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Hi! Thanks for the link.

I hadn't thought about whether there might be a distinction between self-published and more widely available pieces. Though with it available online, arguably it's at least as available as something from an old edition of Analog....

[inari0.livejournal.com]

Bruce Sterling's Distraction has parts set in Boston.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

seborn also pointed me here. It's pretty soft SF, but Wen Spencer's Dog Warrior (4th book in a series) takes place in Boston, featuring the Big Dig.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Soft, hard, I'm not really making that distinction (I may have found some Boston-set horror, and that seems reasonable to include too). Thanks for the pointer. Of course, with the Big Dig winding down and Boston a bit changed, it might be a challenge to find the current spaces... :-)

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Pointed your way by mabfan

Nothing jumps immediately to mind (other than "A Subway..."), but here's something to check out: at which university was thiotimoline "discovered" and researched? Asimov, of course, had a strong Boston connection. I just don't remember whether he set those stories at a real university, likely in Boston, or a fictitious one, in Boston or otherwise.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Well, according to one site, Asimov got his BA, MA, and PhD at Columbia, published the thiotimoline story in 1948 after getting the last degree at Columbia, and started teaching at BU in 1949. Which implies that Columbia is a more likely base for his university.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

Does Star Trek count? :)

If so, then "Strangers From the Sky" by Margaret Wander Bonanno contains a subplot involving Spock trapped in Boston in a "past" century (22nd I believe or maybe 21st). I seem to recall it name checking MIT. In it Bonanno gives Spock jewish ancestors, which I thought was a very nice touch. Highly recommended, if a little dated.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Star Trek novel or Star Trek ep? As long as it's printed, it definitely counts.

And it's cool to have Spock in Boston! Thanks for the pointer.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

It's a novel. You can buy it from Amazon here (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671734814/103-3320356-7212642)

[yamazakikun.livejournal.com]

"Building 9" by J. Martin Graetz was set at MIT.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the pointer!