Singing the Dogstar Blues -- Alison Goodman

Seventeen-year-old Joss Aaronson has been kicked out of over ten schools, has an attitude problem and would rather play her harmonica and drink sake than go out of her way to ingratiate herself with any authority figures.  Even after a huge donation from her famous tele-journalist mother, she only just barely made it into the twelve person class at the Centre for Neo-Historical Studies.  So it's a surprise to everyone when she is chosen by the Chorian delegation to partner up with the Centre's first-ever alien student.

I read Singing the Dogstar Blues for the first time years and years ago, but then recently decided to revisit it after reading a short story in the Firebirds Rising collection that dealt with the same characters.

It begins:

I saw the assassin before she saw me.  She was eating noodles at one of the hawker bars, watching the university gates.  I knew she was a killer because old Lenny Porchino had pointed her out to me at the Buzz Bar two nights ago.

"Hey, take a look at that skinny kid with the frizzy hair," he'd said, nodding his head towards the doors behind me.

We were sitting in Lenny's private booth, hidden from general view.  I shifted in my seat until I could see her.  Skinny, frizzy, and mean.

"What about her?" I said, banging my harmonica against the flat of my hand.  I had just finished jamming with the band and my harp was full of slag.

"That's Tori Suka.  She's a culler for the hyphen families.  If she's in town, someone's gonna die."

As you may have guessed, there's a ton of slang, and Joss doesn't go out of her way to explain it (which I, of course, loved), but it's easy to pick up the meanings of the words from the context.  She does give quite a lot of background on the history and science of their futuristic world and culture, but it is mostly done in a way that relates to her personal situation and how it differs from most other peoples', so it doesn't feel out of place or too info-dumpy.

I saw the solutions to the mysteries -- the identity of Joss' father and the identity of Tori Suka's target -- a mile away, and I thought the showdown at the end was a bit weak, but all of the other strengths of the book (Joss' voice, her developing friendship with Mavkel, the world-building) more than made up for that weakness.  And, in a way, knowing what was coming before Joss figured everything out added quite a lot of tension to the last quarter of the book.  Well, it did for me, anyway.  Oh, and I thought the time jump was done very well -- I do love that puzzle-pieces-clicking-into-place feeling. 

So, yeah.  I'm really glad that I re-read this one.  I especially loved the world -- which brought to mind a better-lit version of Blade Runner: The High School Years crossed with Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series -- and it's one that I'd definitely read more about.  But I'll content myself with reading Alison Goodman's new book, which sounds like a trip and a half.