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Polar City #1
Polar City Blues
POLAR POLITICS Polar capital of Hagar, one of a handful of worlds on which the tiny, human-dominated Republic sits, uneasily squeezed between the powerful Interstellar Confederation and the enormous Coreward Alliance. When a suspected alien spy from the Confederation Embassy is found murdered, a potentially explosive political situation faces Police Chief Bates. And when talented psychic Mulligan is brought to the scene to pick up echoes of the event, what he experiences sends him into amnesiac shock. Meanwhile, murders continue unabated and a major crisis threatens to destabilise the Republic...
352 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1990
About the author
Katharine Kerr
70 books1,666 followersBorn in Ohio, 1944. Moved to San Francisco Bay Area in 1962 and has lived there ever since. Katharine Kerr has read extensively in the fields of classical archeology, and medieval and dark ages history and literature, and these influences are clear in her work. Her epic Deverry series has won widespread praise and millions of fans around the world.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
July 17, 2020
Well, that was very entertaining. I loved the murder mystery galactic intrigue style of the story, with a hint of romance and a wonderful cast of misfit characters. While we mostly followed 3 characters, an ex-military spacer turned smuggler, a messed-up psychic baseball player and an off-world police chief, we see things also from the “bad guy’s” POV. Somehow, the author makes us empathize with everyone, even the bad guys. There are so many side-stories or rather bits that tie into the murder-mystery that it is never simple. After my initial struggle with the book having 60 more pages after the bad guy was taken care of, I’ve decided that I like that the story was not just reduced to a murder mystery. Can’t say more because; spoilers.
Kerr simply reversed racial discrimination, which I think was an over-simplified sort of social commentary for our own society. Caucasian’s are in the minority and considered and treated as inferior by the black/Hispanic human majority. Otherwise, there is virtually no commentary whatsoever. There are non-human beings integrated into the society and therefore people are called “sentients” or “beings”, as in policebeings.
Baseball has somehow become the major sport in this far-flung far-future setting. 🤷🏻♀️
The use of a dialect in the dialect tripped me up for most of the book. A sort of stereo typical grammatical error made by Spanish speakers infused with many Spanish words and phrases. This was called “Merrkan”. The main white character (the psychic baseball player) also spoke like a Valley girl, with lots of “likes” peppered into his speech. It was sort of obliquely explained by telling the history of psychic development in humans stemming from communes in California that ended up going to space before most others. I was not a fan of these linguistic extrapolations.As I said earlier, it seemed a bit over-simplified, maybe even lazy, although I’m sure a lot of thought went into it and care during the writing and editorial process.
So, that’s kind of a lot of niggly bits that I was not fond of, but nevertheless, I REALLY was VERY entertained, hence, 3.5 stars rounded up.
Kerr simply reversed racial discrimination, which I think was an over-simplified sort of social commentary for our own society. Caucasian’s are in the minority and considered and treated as inferior by the black/Hispanic human majority. Otherwise, there is virtually no commentary whatsoever. There are non-human beings integrated into the society and therefore people are called “sentients” or “beings”, as in policebeings.
Baseball has somehow become the major sport in this far-flung far-future setting. 🤷🏻♀️
The use of a dialect in the dialect tripped me up for most of the book. A sort of stereo typical grammatical error made by Spanish speakers infused with many Spanish words and phrases. This was called “Merrkan”. The main white character (the psychic baseball player) also spoke like a Valley girl, with lots of “likes” peppered into his speech. It was sort of obliquely explained by telling the history of psychic development in humans stemming from communes in California that ended up going to space before most others. I was not a fan of these linguistic extrapolations.As I said earlier, it seemed a bit over-simplified, maybe even lazy, although I’m sure a lot of thought went into it and care during the writing and editorial process.
So, that’s kind of a lot of niggly bits that I was not fond of, but nevertheless, I REALLY was VERY entertained, hence, 3.5 stars rounded up.
July 9, 2020
Yet another Switzerland rating. Not really bad, just not very interesting. I didn't care for the characaters, the plot seemed chaotic and uneven, with an almost completely static first half, then a hugely actionpacked last part with lots of fast paced battles both on and off world. Not something that can hold my interest for very long. There were some interesting ideas, but they were only shallowly touched on, not really fully developed, in fact everything seemed to just be vague plot devides instead of actual interesting thought experiment. I know we can't all be UKL, but if you're bringing in psionic people who can mind read, could we utilize it a bit more than just angsting about a romance which in the end wasn't an issue at all? I felt at times mildly entertained by this, but other times I couldn't keep focus. Had it been a movie I'd have probably turned it off near the end and not given it further thought.
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August 25, 2016Polar City Blues holds up very well for SF first published in 1990. Of course, I'm inclined to like tales mixing psychics, aliens, and murder mysteries. Kerr has built a universe which deliberately 'others' Caucasians, which succeeds reasonably well.
If I had a negative, it would be the use of 'crazies' as one of the obstacles. Oh, and the multiple links to old Earth culture in this far future. There's no reason sports like baseball wouldn't survive interplanetary dispersal, but that in particular makes this feel like a very American future.
It's always fascinating to see what people envisage future tech to be like in books written before smartphones. There's a few places where difficulties could be overcome if people could just text and email each other, but otherwise the belt-comm was pretty good.
If I had a negative, it would be the use of 'crazies' as one of the obstacles. Oh, and the multiple links to old Earth culture in this far future. There's no reason sports like baseball wouldn't survive interplanetary dispersal, but that in particular makes this feel like a very American future.
It's always fascinating to see what people envisage future tech to be like in books written before smartphones. There's a few places where difficulties could be overcome if people could just text and email each other, but otherwise the belt-comm was pretty good.
December 14, 2017
As usual with Katharine Kerrs books, I liked her characters the most. She has a way of creating unique characters that I get attached to very easily. I loved their dynamics. The friendship between Nunks and Mulligan was heartwarming, and I loved Buddy's attitude towards Mulligan, and his devotion towards Lacey. I liked how the relationship between Lacey and Mulligan evolved during the story. They were super cute together.
The story was engaging. It had a great flow, and really kept me wanting to continue reading.
The world Katharine Kerr created was very interesting. Obviously she put a lot of thought into it. I liked how the aliens and the humans all fit into the same civilization, and I really liked their dialect, and they way the telepathic dialogues were described.
I'm looking forward to reading the second book!
The story was engaging. It had a great flow, and really kept me wanting to continue reading.
The world Katharine Kerr created was very interesting. Obviously she put a lot of thought into it. I liked how the aliens and the humans all fit into the same civilization, and I really liked their dialect, and they way the telepathic dialogues were described.
I'm looking forward to reading the second book!
April 7, 2010
I liked this book a lot. The alien enclave, the artificial intelligence, the registered Psychic Mulligan who cannot play baseball, where he was a star and Bobby Lacey, the ex fleet officer who knows everything that is happening in Polar city.
Its just a fun fun read, which is probably why every 5-7 years I crack it open and read it again.
Its just a fun fun read, which is probably why every 5-7 years I crack it open and read it again.
October 9, 2015
A murder mystery, set in the future. I read this in high school, and really liked it. In fact, I had the feeling that it was part of a series, or maybe I just hoped it was, but never could find any more. I loved the pairing of the psychic and the cop (a novel idea at the time), I really just enjoyed all the characters, normal, telepathic, and alien.
March 4, 2011
Great title, average read.
July 7, 2020
The start of this wasn’t very encouraging. Police chief Al Bates is called into a murder scene where the victim - an off-world diplomat - has had his throat cut from ear to ear. I know this novel is from 1992 but the thought of another crime/SF mash-up was oddly dispiriting. Yet it turned out to be readable enough despite Chief Bates, while popping up from time to time throughout, not being the book’s main focus, and that because it doesn’t really have one.
Jack Mulligan, a semi-pro baseball player with psionic abilities, comes across the murder site and offers his services to the police but he encounters a very powerful and debilitating psychic block, presumably emanating from the murderer. In the aftermath various other people, potential witnesses, though the killer has left no obvious traces of himself, are found slaughtered in the same way.
Mulligan’s not even nascent relationship with a woman called Lacey, whose occupation is somewhat obscure but seems to be on the border of illegality, is the subject of an attempt by Kerr to round out her characters but the representation verges on the adolescent. Also in the mix is a flesh-eating disease caused by a bacterium picked up in an unsalubrious area known as the Rat Yard, a disease whose main side effect is it causes its victims to smell strongly of vinegar and which the murderer has contracted.
The characters here - barring an AI and the brief conversations held via psychic means - all speak in a stripped down English known as Merrkan which in an Author’s Note Kerr says is a future projection of (perhaps even thinner than) how people in the US Sunbelt converse already. In addition, the inhabitants of Polar City all have a seemingly inveterate interest in baseball, which, to a Brit, comes across as just weird. I know it’s the national game of the US but, come on, imagine a British SF novel which featured cricket, for example. It’s not going to happen.
The story here is really all over the place, the murders are resolved about three-quarters of the way through and then the tale morphs into an interplanetary (or interspaceship) chase sequence dealing with a First Contact scenario. Okay, the aliens were the source of the bacterium but it’s still a jarring shift of emphasis.
The blurb - from Locus - on the book’s front cover claims Polar City Blues is, “A Hell of a lot of fun.” Fun? Multiple gruesome murders, and it is fun? There are humorous moments but these mainly involve miscommunications.
Overall Polar City Blues is inconsequential. I doubt I’ll bother with any more from Kerr.
Jack Mulligan, a semi-pro baseball player with psionic abilities, comes across the murder site and offers his services to the police but he encounters a very powerful and debilitating psychic block, presumably emanating from the murderer. In the aftermath various other people, potential witnesses, though the killer has left no obvious traces of himself, are found slaughtered in the same way.
Mulligan’s not even nascent relationship with a woman called Lacey, whose occupation is somewhat obscure but seems to be on the border of illegality, is the subject of an attempt by Kerr to round out her characters but the representation verges on the adolescent. Also in the mix is a flesh-eating disease caused by a bacterium picked up in an unsalubrious area known as the Rat Yard, a disease whose main side effect is it causes its victims to smell strongly of vinegar and which the murderer has contracted.
The characters here - barring an AI and the brief conversations held via psychic means - all speak in a stripped down English known as Merrkan which in an Author’s Note Kerr says is a future projection of (perhaps even thinner than) how people in the US Sunbelt converse already. In addition, the inhabitants of Polar City all have a seemingly inveterate interest in baseball, which, to a Brit, comes across as just weird. I know it’s the national game of the US but, come on, imagine a British SF novel which featured cricket, for example. It’s not going to happen.
The story here is really all over the place, the murders are resolved about three-quarters of the way through and then the tale morphs into an interplanetary (or interspaceship) chase sequence dealing with a First Contact scenario. Okay, the aliens were the source of the bacterium but it’s still a jarring shift of emphasis.
The blurb - from Locus - on the book’s front cover claims Polar City Blues is, “A Hell of a lot of fun.” Fun? Multiple gruesome murders, and it is fun? There are humorous moments but these mainly involve miscommunications.
Overall Polar City Blues is inconsequential. I doubt I’ll bother with any more from Kerr.
July 31, 2023
Honestly not quite sure why I'm giving this book a 5 star rating.
On reflection it is essentially a noir crime novel but with a series of heavy sci-fi twist involving alien diseases, inter-planetary politics, rogue Ai's and psychic powers. Nothing about it struck me as majorly unique, though it is an original sci-fi setting, and while it has a lot of social themes they generally take a back seat to the main plot.
The key thing is that this book is so much fun. Brilliantly paced, mixing setting exposition and plot events with extreme deftness. The tone and style of the writing is also sublime for the subject matter at hand, balancing both tension and slower more relaxed periods. It also manages to be really funny at times with great dialogue all without disrupting the tone.
I'm not sure how it would hold up to a second reading but I don't care I only remember having a great time reading it through, thoroughly enjoying all the characters and the setting. If you want a grounded sci-fi novel with crime and skullduggery by all means pick up a copy from somewhere.
On reflection it is essentially a noir crime novel but with a series of heavy sci-fi twist involving alien diseases, inter-planetary politics, rogue Ai's and psychic powers. Nothing about it struck me as majorly unique, though it is an original sci-fi setting, and while it has a lot of social themes they generally take a back seat to the main plot.
The key thing is that this book is so much fun. Brilliantly paced, mixing setting exposition and plot events with extreme deftness. The tone and style of the writing is also sublime for the subject matter at hand, balancing both tension and slower more relaxed periods. It also manages to be really funny at times with great dialogue all without disrupting the tone.
I'm not sure how it would hold up to a second reading but I don't care I only remember having a great time reading it through, thoroughly enjoying all the characters and the setting. If you want a grounded sci-fi novel with crime and skullduggery by all means pick up a copy from somewhere.
May 22, 2020
3,5
I liked the plot in this one a lot! I also enjoyed the characters, though they took a bit to grow three dimensional and feel real to me.
The prose was fluent, but the deliberate stylistic form for dialogue felt annoying to me. It is well and consistently done and I understand why it's there, but I just didn't like it. It seems in the future we forget the word not and instead use the word "no" instead. So sentences would read like "I no doing this." People also are or are not savvy. Pardon, they no savvy.
The book seemed to end really well, but then there was a chapter after what felt like the end. And that felt too much like a "what happened after" and I didn't like that.
All in all it was a good book I don't regret reading, but not my favourite sci-fi book.
I liked the plot in this one a lot! I also enjoyed the characters, though they took a bit to grow three dimensional and feel real to me.
The prose was fluent, but the deliberate stylistic form for dialogue felt annoying to me. It is well and consistently done and I understand why it's there, but I just didn't like it. It seems in the future we forget the word not and instead use the word "no" instead. So sentences would read like "I no doing this." People also are or are not savvy. Pardon, they no savvy.
The book seemed to end really well, but then there was a chapter after what felt like the end. And that felt too much like a "what happened after" and I didn't like that.
All in all it was a good book I don't regret reading, but not my favourite sci-fi book.
February 2, 2019
Polar City Blues was written in 1990 but it holds up very well 20 years later. A small settlement of humans lives on a desert planet far, far away. Earth is no longer habitable due to climate change. On this distant planet, humans are not the controlling species; and among the humans, whites are not the dominant race. Now add humans with psychic abilities and a new First Contact into the mix. Now add a gruesome and mysterious murder. What you have is a murder mystery filled with alien worlds very different from our own. The author’s world-building is clever and interesting. The book is a great example of sci-fi.
October 26, 2020
Read this book as part of a reading challenge as I can use it as published in 1970s space or set in future.
It's an ok book although not my cup of tea.
Funnily enough the author has imagined how people will speak in the future and wrote this in the 70s. It is interesting that people do say "like" all the time! But not sure why they speak in Spanish phrases!
Difficult to get to know the different spieces
It's an ok book although not my cup of tea.
Funnily enough the author has imagined how people will speak in the future and wrote this in the 70s. It is interesting that people do say "like" all the time! But not sure why they speak in Spanish phrases!
Difficult to get to know the different spieces
August 4, 2023
A conventional plotboiler that sails merrily along with enough motivation set out for characters to act in a comprehensible manner. The author did season with humour and romance but these add little to the overall effort. One could call such novels pedestrian with a simplistic geopolitical background; alien races that accentuate certain social features; and mainstream sci-fi tropes. But it was an enjoyable romp with enough to keep one turning the page.
July 5, 2022
8 1990 With a title like that-who could resist trying to hum it rather than speak it. Big brother >need me?
>Need talk Lacey> BUT| >cop goes away.
Okay\ BUT| >cop goes, Lacey goes>>
[aggravation] She can wait\not wait?
Not wait. Big brother, woman Sally name/Lacey friend\ real danger [fear] >>throat slashed open. >Lacey find/must find\ before then.
>Need talk Lacey> BUT| >cop goes away.
Okay\ BUT| >cop goes, Lacey goes>>
[aggravation] She can wait\not wait?
Not wait. Big brother, woman Sally name/Lacey friend\ real danger [fear] >>throat slashed open. >Lacey find/must find\ before then.
March 12, 2023
Picked this up on a whim from the local library branch with no idea of Kerr's work, and instead only on the concept of the title. Found a really interesting but highly Americanized blend of detective story, science fiction political thriller, and first contact tale. Not sure I'm going to go out of my way to track down more of the Polar City series but this was diverting enough.
February 25, 2018
One of my absolutely favorite books. I reread it a lot
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October 26, 2023Love this story, original, funny & easy to get into
November 17, 2023
One of my favourite sci fi books of all time. Amazing. My copy is almost falling apart... so I have two!
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December 25, 2024SFFBC Buddy Read discussion
May 30, 2025
More like 2.5 stars
June 18, 2025
Linguistically fascinating. Excellent examination of the generation of language.
November 30, 2025
Fabulous exploration of the generation and evolution of language
May 10, 2026
Loved this! Convincingly characters, both human and alien! Keen to read PC Nightmare now!
May 14, 2026
One of those books I've had sitting around for years, and that I'm now kicking myself for waiting so long to read. A twisty mystery that's every bit as scifi as criminal, and a lot of fun.
May 17, 2026
Excellent book, read many times. Love the world building!
September 6, 2016
Jeff found this at the Library sale of books, it was a good find! I have really enjoyed it! It is an old fashioned science fiction story with several different alien species (but the action is focused on the humans) with an alien landscape (off earth colony) political intrigue (several species living together on the planet) cops and underground power brokers or operatives" who know the city better than anyone, Artificial Intelligence that becomes more and more aware, a space chase to save yet another new species, telepathy across species which is interesting, esp the effects on an alien who cannot speak and some schizophrenic humans who think God is talking to them,and a little love story. But it all works. A fast paced story in which people who I thought ere just going t block each other start to work together. In fact the amount of cooperation is a big reason why I liked it. This author is more known for writing the "Devenerry" series of like 18 books of fantasy in a pre-Celtic land. I may have to check ne of those out too.
January 24, 2015
More like 3 1/2 stars than 4. It's a solid police procedural in a science fiction setting. Kerr writes believable dialogue and can develop characters. She knows how to move a plot along. The science fiction interest is primarily from a planet that has almost no water and the way the population adapts. She throws in two alien civilizations that are hostile to each other and who both would like to take over the human occupied region. The planet where the story takes place is occupied by 2 species, humans, and a reptilian species called "Lizzies." Among the humans people with dark skins are dominant. Light skinned humans are treated as second class citizens. The unifying cultural element for the humans and the reptiles is, wait for it, baseball.
Revealing the central conflict of the plot would be a spoiler. It's an entertaining read.
Revealing the central conflict of the plot would be a spoiler. It's an entertaining read.
March 2, 2024
Generally I liked this one, but it might not have been the right moment to read it, or I didn't fully jive with it.
The characters are good and the world building is complete and impressive, but the writing didn't really immerse me in it as much.
I didn't really connect with the various jargons (Merrkan, or the psychics parts).
The plot is nice enough, could have moved a bit more, but it has interesting ideas about aliens and societies and with a classic background of some assassin's murder.
Maybe it lost me from the author notes explaining about the American feeling it tries to capture. But aside from the lingo it didn't really feel too American. Then again, not sure why I needed a baseball lesson as an appendix to understand the USA.
I might read on in the series, but not right now.
The characters are good and the world building is complete and impressive, but the writing didn't really immerse me in it as much.
I didn't really connect with the various jargons (Merrkan, or the psychics parts).
The plot is nice enough, could have moved a bit more, but it has interesting ideas about aliens and societies and with a classic background of some assassin's murder.
Maybe it lost me from the author notes explaining about the American feeling it tries to capture. But aside from the lingo it didn't really feel too American. Then again, not sure why I needed a baseball lesson as an appendix to understand the USA.
I might read on in the series, but not right now.
December 7, 2007
A really good sci-fi. Shows that the best books are about normal people in abnormal circumstances. The characters are really three dimensional and I like the crime/agent novel plot. The "universe" Kerr have built in this story is very credible and have some things that other sci-fi writers often forget or avoid, like social tension, racism, poverty and misery. She even manged to make the alien species credible, a thing many sci-fi writers fail to do.
January 17, 2011
En helt schysst sf-bok. Kerrs första i genren, men det syns tydligt att det inte är hennes första bok. Starka karaktärer och fängslande handling. Ingen stark hit på något sätt, men allmänt läsvärd och intressant. En bra sommarbok helt enkelt.
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