Bone Dance

Bone Dance, a 1991 novel by American author Emma Bull, mixes elements of fantasy, hard science fiction, and cyberpunk. It earned nominations for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards in 1992, plus a special citation from the Philip K. Dick Award.

The unnamed city where the story takes place is likely a climate-altered version of Minneapolis, the same setting as Bull’s earlier novel *War for the Oaks*. Each of the book’s ten sections is named for a Tarot card, and Louisiana Voodoo appears throughout. Subtitled “A Fantasy for Technophiles,” the novel centers on electronics and devices. The time is a post-nuclear future following a war between the Americas, North and South. Skill in repairing and maintaining salvaged technology is highly valued, as are pre-war artifacts. The point-of-view character, Sparrow, earns a living by trading such skills and occasionally selling scavenged items. Sparrow is a bioengineered human, though this is not revealed until halfway through the story.

The plot opens with Sparrow selling a rare videotape to a wealthy collector. Soon after, Sparrow wakes up in a confusing place, injured and with no memory of the previous 36 hours. Along the way, readers meet Sparrow’s friends and encounter the Night Market, a large district open only after dark, governed by “The Deal”—everything is a transaction. Events include a cryptic Tarot reading by friend Sherrea, abduction by a dead man animated by what seems to be a Loa, and introduction to a Vodun-based community aiming to overthrow the city’s status quo, by coup if needed. That status quo includes the man most responsible for the intercontinental war, now at the city’s top of power—also the revenge target of another survivor from his kind. These are the “Horsemen,” modified people who can transfer their consciousness between bodies. The second half follows Sparrow’s awkward progress toward becoming fully human and a valued community member, ending with the conceit that the entire narrative has been an autobiography.

Scholars see *Bone Dance* as defying both genre and gender conventions: its setting blends fantasy with hard science fiction, and its protagonist blurs gender boundaries. Academic Veronica Hollinger called it “a feminist revision of 1980s cyberpunk,” noting its hard-boiled tone resembles William Gibson’s *Neuromancer*. The novel uses cyberpunk motifs like mind control and