"The city in the middle of the night" by Charlie Jane Anders: NPR

"The founders of this city had a valid theory of human nature, but they pushed it too far.It is the problem of big social ideas in general, they break if you tell them give too much weight. "

In each book, there is a moment. A moment when the author must expose, in simple terms, his central argument. It does not matter or it happens, only that it happens. This is where the main character (s) realize the issues, understand the costs, see, even briefly, the future. No matter where it comes from, it's the middle of the story: it's the geographical center. Everything before that will be prologue. All after, the result.

In The city in the middle of the nightCharlie Jane Anders puts his argument on page 212, in the middle of a tumultuous moment, meeting a new character. "Great social ideas … break if you put too much weight on them."

It's the book. All. Twelve words.

Here's where we are: The planet January, an impenetrable body far from the Earth. One side faces the sun and it's a hell that will make you melt with its warmth. The other faces the deep space. He will freeze you with his darkness. Humans came here a long time ago, after a misunderstood ecological disaster, and chose (rather inexplicably) this overtly hostile world to settle – a place where they could exist only in the narrow margins between the day and darkness.

They built two big cities, Xiosphant and Argelo. In the first case, life is orderly, regulated, experienced by the ticking of an artificial weather system to compensate for the absence of a traditional day / night cycle. Language, economics, politics – everything has been shaped by an order to assimilate and thrive in this foreign place, hampered by the absence of a natural system, collapsed by the slow degradation of all the technology that accompanied them Earth. The second, Argelo, is the opposite. He is anarchist, libertine, led by criminal gangs still at war. There, you can do what you want. The problem is, everyone can do it.

And yes, I understand. All this sounds simple, is not it? People can also wear special colors or badges to designate their specific caste, so we know who to turn to when the brave heroine convinces them to rise up in revolt.

Oh, wait. They do.

But stay with me for a minute because there is more here. Many (and many) more.

At first there is Sophie who loves Bianca and Bianca who also loves Bianca. Sophie, a poor girl on the dark side of Xiosphant, who imposed her way to the fantasy university where Bianca (rich, privileged, gorgeous, horrible girl in a way that will haunt you in the end) was born at.

Bianca likes to play revolutionary. Love shouting about justice and rebellion between glittering parties and balls. Of course, Sophie plays well, but one day, Bianca basically steals three dollars from a cash register to buy drinks at her co-trust fund Che Guevaras. The cops involve it. Sophie takes rap for her – not wanting to see the beautiful life of her friend spoiled. And then the police kill her. Or try to. They perform what amounts to an extrajudicial ban, throwing Sophie outside the walls of the city to die in the middle of the cold and crocodiles.

Did not I mention crocodiles? Oh, you'll like that.

Before the arrival of humans, January already had a native species. The crocodiles (which Sophie will later call the Gelet) are intelligent, cultivated, advanced. They communicate by telepathy, by touch and smell, share all the memories of everything and have an immense city in the middle of the dark side of the planet. Humans, of course, hate them because they look like lobsters with giant fur. So they hunt them, kill them, sometimes eat them. Because people, no? We are just the worst.

Except, agree, yes. We are a little. And that's where Anders goes here because The city is basically a story about exactly what's worse. All. It's almost a fable with his talking animals. Basically, an unscrupulous political debate took place between sophomores, but dressed in the drama of a science fiction novel. It's a story about how big social ideas break down and who is most hurt when breaking up. A story of memory, family, lineage, class and revolution (and giant lobsters on ice) where the vast majority of action is emotional, relational.

And yes, there is adventure and action. I mean, it's a book with spaceships, pirates, smugglers, rebels, rich girls and alien monsters with lobster. And Charlie Jane knows how to tell these stories, of course.

But it's more than that, that's what I say. It is an intimate portrait of people as much as it is a socially conscious science fiction play – a look at our time in history through a distorting lens on aliens and spaceships . And it is these people who break everything that hinders the end of things; which are the living and breathing hearths of "Theorem[ies] of human nature "under discussion, and the eyes through which we will see the beginnings, the burning environment and the cold, dark ends of things before we are through.

Jason Sheehan knows things about food, video games, books and STARBLAZERS. He is currently the restaurant critic at Philadelphia cream magazine, but when no one is watching, he spends his time writing books about giant robots and ray guns. Tales of the age of radiation is his last book.