(Remembering Three Mile Island: 30 years later)
'In the Drift' (195 pp.) was published by Ace Books in February 1985 under its 'Science Fiction Specials' imprint. The cover art is by Ron Lieberman. Subsequent printings were made by Ace Books in 1987, and in the UK, in 1989 by Legend.
'Drift' is a fixup of several stories that Swanwick first published in the early 1980s in genre magazines such as Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and anthologies such as Universe 11.
'Drift' posits a scenario in which the reactor at Three Mile Island experienced a catastrophic meltdown in March 1979. The novel is set in Pennsylvania, circa 2079, and the central and southern portions of the state are thinly populated wastelands contaminated by fallout (the ‘Drift’ of the title). The United States government has collapsed, leaving various regional governments and satrapies in its place.
Philadelphia is the nearest metropolis to the Drift; it’s governed by the Mummers, a neighborhood organization that in the pre-meltdown days staged New Year's Day parades, and served as something of a clandestine force in city politics. The main protagonist of the novel is Keith Piotrowicz (pr. 'pet-ro-vich'), a somewhat aimless young man who works as a truck driver, toting garbage and toxic waste from Philly out to dumping grounds in the Drift.
The initial chapter, 'Mummer's Kiss', sees Keith learning perhaps too much about the nature of the Drift than is wise; there is an emphasis on action and intrigue that makes this the best chapter in the book.
The remaining chapters focus on characters such as Sam, a 'vampire' girl whose mutated intestines cannot digest any food other than blood; Vicky, a girl whose family resides in the margins of the Drift; Esterhazy, a dwarf scientist researching the means of survival in the fallout zone; and Patrick Cruz O'Brien, a naive reporter from Boston who decides to chronicle the increasing tension between the population of the Drift, and those in power who desire to exploit the territory for the benefit of influential political and economic interests.
These characters and their sub-plots culminate in events that will dictate the future of what is left of the Drift, and by extension, the United States..........
While Swanwick was publishing and garnering critical praise at the same time as the flowering of the Cyberpunks in the mid - 80s, and is often included among their ranks, his writing is much less wordy than that of Gibson, Shirley, Shepard, or even Sterling. However, in my opinion, Swanwick is just as adept as those authors at conveying atmosphere and setting, despite his comparatively restrained exposition.
'In the Drift' is one of the best SF novels to emerge from the 80s (and, by extension, the Cyberpunk movement). Every time I cross the I-83 bridge into Harrisburg and I look south at the Susquehanna River, towards Middleton, and I see the far-off silhouette of the cooling towers at TMI, the strange, alternate future Pennsylvania of the 'Drift' readily comes to mind.....
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