"The Miranda Conspiracy"

James Cambias has been nominated for the James Tiptree Jr. Award and the 2001 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Miranda Conspiracy, and reported the following:

My new novel The Miranda Conspiracy is a far-future political thriller set inside and around Uranus's moon Miranda. It's a direct sequel to my first "Billion Worlds" book, The Godel Operation, and follows the main characters from that story. The sarcastic AI Daslakh accompanies its human best friend Zee, and Adya Elso, the woman Zee has fallen in love with, back to her home world Miranda, where her parents are part of the exclusive plutocratic ruling class known as the Sixty Families. They travel aboard Pelagia, a spaceship with an uplifted orca brain who is a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

In the ocean under Miranda's icy crust, the three of them must face spies, gangsters, mercenaries, and the biggest threat of all: Adya's family. Her parents want Adya to marry for money in order to preserve their position, and Zee has nothing to offer but his own good nature. Adya and Zee try to solve the crisis facing Adya's family and get drawn into deeper and deeper layers of intrigue.

I don't think page 69 of The Miranda Conspiracy is a good indication of what the book is like. The page is split between two scenes. On the top half, Zee and Daslakh are discussing a little of Miranda's history and Zee reaffirms his vow to recover the incredibly valuable cargo payload inbound from the Oort Cloud, which Adya's great-grandmother left to her, but which got sold off when her parents were scrambling to repay debts.

On the bottom half of the page, Adya and Zee are at dinner with Adya's parents, and Adya brings up the possibility that the family's financial difficulties might be the result of a deliberate attack by some hostile party. Her father also mentions the divisive political issue of the Cryoglyphs — ancient ice carvings from the early days of Miranda exploration, thousands of years earlier — and how his desire to protect them has cut him off from the possibility of financial aid from the other members of the ruling coalition.

By themselves, these two snippets seem a bit trivial, and we certainly don't see any of the underwater chases, space battles, or sneaking around that liven up the book's action. However, both segments are laying track for some major developments. Zee's drive to recover the Oort payload for Adya — and thereby save the family's fortunes and win her parents' approval — will lead him through a series of encounters in Miranda's oligarch class and underworld, which in turn will put Daslakh in position to recognize the real author of the Elso family's problems.

Meanwhile Adya's investigation of the forces opposing her father put her in touch with revolutionaries who want to overthrow the existing oligarchy, Miranda's police service, and her airheaded sister's fanatical fans. In the end, the two plot lines intersect in a coup and invasion.

In effect, page 69 is about the point at which the situation has been established, the scene set, and the plot begins accelerating down the runway to takeoff.

Visit James L. Cambias's website.

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Writers Read: James L. Cambias (January 2019).

My Book, The Movie: Arkad's World.

The Page 69 Test: Arkad's World.

My Book, The Movie: The Godel Operation.

Q&A with James L. Cambias.

The Page 69 Test: The Godel Operation.

--Marshal Zeringue