Worlds by Joe Haldeman (1981)Read about the other entries on the list at Tor.com.
One of the half million who call the orbiting habitats (the Worlds) home, Marianne O’Hara’s academic ambitions draw her down from New New York to its namesake on Earth. A fourth-generation child of the Worlds, O’Hara looks forward to an enriching education on Earth. Pity that so much of it will be intensely unpleasant.
New York is a violent, crime-ridden city. While the Second Revolution brought an unstable peace to the United States, stark divisions remain, wanting only a spark to flare into civil war. Likewise, while the world took a lesson from the cataclysmic South American nuclear war, across the planet vast nuclear arsenals remain, awaiting only the right spark to be unleashed. O’Hara may be that spark.
Worlds is a compact exploration of late-1970s, early 1980s American enthusiasms and anxieties: space cities on the plus side of the ledger, and urban decay, political strife, and nuclear doom on the minus. There are other contemporary works that draw from the same well of inspiration, but Haldeman’s was one of the better written books.
--Marshal Zeringue
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