Science fiction and music are often closely linked, and Kathleen Ann Goonan’s work is particularly characterized by this. In her books, musical structure is intertwined with scientific concepts, creating a unique artistic space.
From childhood, the author was surrounded by jazz – this music was played in her home and on the radio, which was run by her father, a connoisseur of the genre. It was jazz that shaped her understanding of art: improvisation is often more interesting than the main theme, but the theme itself is necessary to create artistic tension.
Literature and music have much in common: both have a structure with a beginning, a development and a conclusion. The rhythm of the words, the musicality of the phrases, and the tempo of the story all create an immersive experience for the reader, similar to listening to a symphony or jazz improvisation. Great works of literature have a special melodic quality: War and Peace sounds like a powerful symphony, while To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf recalls the smooth, deep rhythms characteristic of Miles Davis or John Coltrane.
Science fiction, like jazz, found its dawn precisely in America. Although many consider Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to be its progenitor, it was Hugo Gernsback who made science fiction popular, captivating readers with bold predictions about the future. The world began to change thanks to science: technology made it possible to transmit sound through wires, travel through the air, and even go into space. Man transformed the surrounding reality, adjusting its rhythms to his needs. It is science fiction that has become the field of literature that takes seriously the achievements of genetics, quantum physics and other sciences that reveal the nature of life.
The question of exactly how music and science fiction come together comes to the fore in Gunan’s books. Art, be it music, literature, or technology, is always a quest to create the new, to find beauty or utility in the world around us. Fiction, on the other hand, focuses on the changes people go through. The artistic process can be seen as an attempt to build order in chaos, to channel random elements into a meaningful direction. Exploring human transformation in a world of technology imbued with musicality becomes a natural task.
In his novel Crescent City Rhapsody, Goonan shows the birth of the nanotechnology age, initiated by a series of events following a powerful electromagnetic pulse from space that disables communications and computers. The protagonist, Marie Laveau, seeks to organize the development of nanotechnology on the principle of a jazz orchestra, in which Duke Ellington gathered musicians with different voices. She attempts to control the historical process by seeking to create a floating city in the Caribbean, a space free of political intrigue.
While knowledge of jazz is not required to understand the book, the musical motifs give it added depth. The chapter titles are inspired by jazz terms such as “Left Hand Chords” and “Unfolded Improvisation in Past and Future Minor.” The word “rhapsody” itself has two meanings: a literary work composed of fragments and a musical composition based on improvisation. The novel combines both of these approaches, combining a rich scientific component with a musical freedom of form.
Other books in the series are also musically structured. Queen City Jazz (1994), which chronologically continues Crescent City Rhapsody, is freer in composition, conveys a cultural mix, and explores a new perception of time. Its structure is reminiscent of jazz improvisation. Mississippi Blues is structured as a trip down the river, presenting a series of adventures in a nanotechnology-altered America, and the chapters are titled in the style of blues songs.
The final installment in the series, Light Music, combines superstring theory, consciousness theory, and musical principles. The book explores the concept of the world as a collection of vibrations and frequencies that we perceive through sight and hearing. This work is an attempt to communicate scientific ideas on an intuitive, deeply personal level.
Thus, rather than simply combining science fiction and music, Gunan constructs literary works in which musicality becomes part of the narrative and rhythms, structure and melody play a key role in conveying ideas.