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DOCTOR LADY and her FLYBOY EX have JUST TWELVE HOURS to get THE ANTIDOTE to THE PRESIDENT or what remains of South America will fall to THE WARLORDS.
Of course they are. You knew that just reading the slugline.
In less than a page, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit.
“Lady Jade,” by Maureen Bowden, is solarpulp. Such pure, undiluted solarpulp that I absolutely know she watched Only Angels Have Wings the night before she started this story. And, much like knowing that of course they make it in time, that’s no bad thing. Bowden has the breathless pace and suddenly-exotic climate changed environs I want from my pulps, breathing new life into old twists (La Paz is an island, the big storm is really big).
Cressida Jade, one of formerly-North-America’s foremost experts on snake venom, is the only one who can save President Ricarda, whose life is the only thing holding South America together by a thread, from the mysterious snakebite that may have been deliberately set on her by regional warlords. But she can’t possibly make it in time, until Jack Lacy
Whadda guy!
steps in with his trusty flying rig the Lady Jade. But Jack and Cressida have a history behind them, and the mother of all storms ahead. Though the mission to save the president is never in doubt, will Jack and Cressida be able to save themselves? Rounding out the cast are Cressida’s beau Luke Araba and Vice President Waru Dangati.
My only complaint about this story is that there’s too little of it! Having made just these kinds of cuts myself in the past, this story cries out that it was a fantastic ten or fifteen thousand words, full of derring do and strange adventures, but had to get cut down to size to submit to this anthology. I’d love to see whatever original version might be floating around on Ms. Bowden’s hard drive, or more adventures in this universe or one just next door. The world could certainly use mere derring-do and strange adventure in the wake of rising tides, rearing storms, and political intrigues.
But that’s, hopefully, a nice problem to have. At any rate, I was thoroughly surprised and delighted to find two-fisted solarpunk escapades between the pages of The Future So Bright. It’s kind of future that, if there were enough like Cressida Jade and Jack Lacy in it, it would be safe to live in, yet not too dull to be worth living in.
Next time, bringing it all together (including a review of “Scars of Satyagraha, by R. Jean Mathieu).
The Future So Bright
“Night Circus,” by Regina Clarke
“The Comforting,” by Kevin David Anderson
“Lady Jade,” by Maureen Bowden
The Future So Bright four-star review
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