Proof of Concept, by Gwyneth Jones (Tor.com) | review by Stephen Theaker

Kir is a young woman with an AI embedded in her head, and this was done by her mother, Margrethe Patel, who adopted her precisely for this purpose. Kir was born in one of the heavily irrradiated and ever-growing Dead Zones that cover the Earth while most people cram into overcrowded dictatorial Hives. Mum trained her as a scientist, while touring the world so that people could pay for the use of her onboard computer, and now they have gone deep underground on the Needle Voyager mission, in a massive cavern deep under the Giewont mountain in Poland. There are habitats on Mars and the Moon, but the future is not looking great for humanity, and so the hope is that Margrethe and her team can find a way out. Unfortunately part of the deal is that the scientists are joined in the base by the irritating future equivalent of YouTubers, and as events unfold Kir’s trust in her mother is put under increasing stress. Short novels are one of my favourite things, and at 140pp this hits the sweet spot. Yet even I was wondering, with sixteen minutes of reading to go, how it could possibly wrap up all the (personal, political and criminal) plotlines without at least a few hundred pages more. Somehow it does. There’s room for sequels, and people may be surprised by the suddenness of the ending, but no one could complain that they didn’t get enough story. And it’s an inventive story with strong characterisation. It’s impossible not to sympathise with the difficult situation in which Kir finds herself, to worry for her as she sneaks out of the base to chill out in the black abyss, or to keep one’s fingers crossed as she takes her first tentative steps towards a romantic relationship. ****

River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com) | review by Stephen Theaker

In March 1857 Albert Broussard proposed the Hippo Act, which would bring hippopotamuses into the United States to be raised for meat. Hippo ranches began to open in August of that year, and by November the Mississippi river was being dammed to create extra marshes for all the hippos to live in. This area was known as the Harriet. Unfortunately, by January the following year hippos were on the loose, ranching in the Harriet became much more difficult, and in time the area came to be dominated by criminals and cutthroats. Nevertheless, pansexual Blackpudlian Winslow Remington Houndstooth tried real hard to get a ranch going, and he was well on the way when malice struck. Some time later, he’s accepting a mission from the federal government. They want the feral hippos cleared out of the Harriet. He gathers a team: heavily pregnant contract killer Adelia Reyes, explosives expert Hero, meteor-hammer wielding Regina “Archie” Archimbault (and her boy assistant Neville), and fastest gun in the West Calhoun Hotchkiss. The government expects them to catch the feral hippos one by one and escort them off the territory. Houndstooth has a rather quicker method in mind, and he’s also hoping to squeeze in some revenge along the way. One problem they’ll face is that the local crime boss rather likes having the wild hippos around, since they keep civilisation out of the area, making it perfect for his needs, and give him a convenient way of disposing of his enemies.

This violent novella feels like a men (and women and Hero) on a mission story, but almost as soon as the team is put together, it begins to fall apart. There’s nothing wrong with subverting expectations, but it does feel unsatisfying. The villain’s plan is hard to understand – he seems to be caught unawares by the completely predictable consequences of his actions – and for the most part the feral hippos function quite similarly to piranha fish, swarming upon anyone they catch in the water. It becomes more interesting on the occasions when individual hippos step into the limelight. It’s got a good cover and a high concept, and that’ll be enough to carry a lot of readers through the book quite happily, but for others it’ll probably feel a bit thin. I found the characters likeable and interesting, especially Houndstooth, Archie, and the enigmatic Hero, whose preferred pronoun is they. The book doesn’t always handle this well: in a sentence like “Hero had grinned and gone back to work, and Archie had caught Houndstooth beaming at them” the reader has no way of knowing whether Houndstooth is beaming only at Hero, which would have romantic implications, or at both Archie and Hero, which would just be jolly. ***

Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com) | review by Stephen Theaker

To be the first from your family to go to university is a curious experience, and, although Binti’s family is exceptionally talented, she is the first of the whole Himba tribe to attend a very special university: it’s on another planet. She’s made friends there with Okwu, a Meduse who was present at an event in the first book that left Binti badly traumatised – and, more positively, left her with alien head tentacles that wave around when she gets mad instead of braids. A year later, she is still getting used to those, to everything, and, even though she’s a dab hand at using maths to calm herself down, she decides to return home during the holidays, to Earth, to go on a traditional pilgrimage and sort herself out. When she gets there, there’ll be some comfort, some pain, and a new, unexpected and revelatory adventure. Binti is a fascinating character with a fascinating background who is living a fascinating life, and what more do you need for a great book? Though this is the middle story in a trilogy, and at the end things are set up for the third book rather than concluded, there is plenty going on. It is easy to sympathise with her feelings about it all. It’s a book with lots of fun ideas, like spaceships that are giant pregnant fish, and when Binti dances she can “manifest mathematical current within me, harmonising it with my muscles, skin, sinew, and bones”. However, she’s forbidden from dancing, from going in the water, from being seen in public without otjize, the happiness of returning home tempered, as it is for so many people, by the need to fit back into the metaphorical cocoon. An old friend, Dele, tells her sadly why he doesn’t want to hang with her while she’s back: “You’re too complex.” But as she comes to realise, “Change was my destiny.”

Note that the Kindle edition can only be downloaded on a limited number of devices, which seems odd for a DRM-free title. We ran out quickly, because everyone in the family wanted it on their Kindles. ****

Acadie, by Dave Hutchinson (Tor.com) | review by Stephen Theaker

It’s the day after the president’s one hundred and fiftieth birthday, and a crisis presents itself. An object has passed the dewline, the solar system’s defensive border, which comprises a billion satellites. The object is a highly radioactive fifteen metre long cylinder, with a shield of ice and a fission engine, and it looks like it’s from the Bureau of Colonisation. The Colony was established in secret hundreds of years ago, founded by genetic engineers fleeing from a right-wing theocracy, and the Bureau of Colonisation has been hunting it ever since. As the cover puts it: “The first humans still hunt their children across the stars.” Now they’ve been found. Duke Faraday got the job of president because no one thought he wanted to do it, making him the ideal candidate, but will he be up to the challenge of protecting this hippie paradise, where people happily turn themselves into orcs, elves, vampires and lions? Though it is a very good novella – large-scale science fiction, full of ideas, crammed into a hundred or so pages, with a brilliant ending, just the way I like it – this is quite a tricky book to review, and people who have read it will know why. You will want to have read it before hearing any spoilers, and this review has been redacted somewhat to reflect that. One thing I can talk about is the book’s title: some reviewers have assumed Acadie is the name of the Colony, but I don’t think that’s mentioned in the text. My guess is that it’s a reference to the doomed seventeenth century French colony. ****

All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com) | review by Stephen Theaker

People are using wormholes to travel to distant planets, and since that can be a dangerous business their insurers tend to insist that the expeditions include a so-called murderbot (a SecUnit) to do any necessary killing. They also record every conversation for later data-mining. One of these robots is our protagonist, and since it has hacked the governor module that would normally keep it under control the explorers don’t realise how much danger they are in. Luckily for them, the murderbot prefers soap opera to grand guignol. Less luckily, someone or something else has tampered with their equipment and data. When a competing base on the other side of the world goes dark, the murderbot accompanies the scientists on a trip to investigate, while trying to deal with the social anxiety that inevitably results from spending time with people who at any moment could rumble its secrets and have it disassembled. They freak out enough even when seeing it has a humanoid face under its helmet. This is a short, very enjoyable book about an anti-hero who can take a lot of damage and keep on going, who almost despite itself starts putting others ahead of its own interests; a bit like Wolverine or Snake Plissken but with the insecurity that comes from its particular circumstances. Placing a character like that in a terribly dangerous scenario with ruthless villains on the loose and a bunch of decent scientists to protect makes for good reading. The fight scenes are very well worked, and so is the evolution of the robot’s relationships with its colleagues/leaseholders. I doubt this’ll be the last book I read about this robot. ****

A Taste of Honey, by Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com) | review by Stephen Theaker

An interesting and romantic novella, in which Aqib, a young and good-looking member of the Olorumi minor nobility with a special way with animals, falls for a rough soldier from the Daluçan embassy. Forbidden and sweaty things happen, to their mutual delight, but it is important to his family that he makes the right marriage, and so when the opportunity for one arises he must choose between love and duty, happiness and family. As the story progresses we are also shown episodes from progressively deeper into his future life, placing ever more weight upon the decision he will have to make. This was a very well-written, exciting and romantic book; the relationships of Aqib with both his lover and his other significant other are tender and believable. Using an extremely famous literary title for another book always seems a bit odd (see also Signal to Noise and Journal of the Plague Year), but the story works hard to justify it. A word for the evocative cover art: fantasy and science fiction book covers often feature great design, but it’s brilliant to see that not every publisher has given up on illustrative artwork. ****

The Drowning Eyes, by Emily Foster (Tor.com) | review by Stephen Theaker

The Windspeakers, weird weather wizards who have their eyes replaced with stones in order to gain control of their powers, have been attacked by the marauding Dragon Ships, and the seas are no longer safe. This means less work for sailors, since no one wants to travel. Chaqal, Tazir and Kodin, who sail on the good ship Giggling Goat, have found a job: Shina, a rich young woman who seems to be on the run from her family. They might be overcharging for their services, but she has secrets of her own, and they are all going to get in much more trouble than expected. Being a fan of short books in general, I like the Tor.com series of ebook novellas, not least for their diversity and for having original artwork on the covers (Cynthia Sheppard provides the art for this one), and this is another fine example. It does feel like more of a novella than a short novel, covering for the main part just one journey, though it is an important one with serious consequences for their passenger. The ebook has a slightly annoying quirk – at least on Kindle, each incidence of italics is followed by a line break – but that wasn’t anywhere near enough to spoil my enjoyment of a very entertaining book about a dashing group of characters. ***

Patchwerk, by David Tallerman (Tor.com) | review by Stephen Theaker

Scientist Dran Florrian has sneaked on to the TransContinental, in the cargo hold of which is his great invention, Palimpsest. The result of five years of work and a lifetime of thought, it is too powerful to be in the hands of a ruthless weapons man like Harlan Dorric, who is waiting for him in the hold. Also there, two hired guns, a technician who blocks Florrian’s neural connection to his clever machine, and Karen, the wife he lost while buried in work. Hang on, no, that’s not right. He’s D’ren Florein, on a queenship, an intelligent insect trying to counter the Nachtswarm, entomological engineering gone mad, and Halann D’rik is the one trying to take control of Palimpsest. No, wait, that’s not right either… This is a good novella that could easily have sprung from one of the Baen collections of classic science fiction by Poul Anderson or Murray Leinster, but instead it’s from David Tallerman, one of our own past contributors. He thinks up lots of neat tricks for the protagonist, whatever his name at any given time, to play with the Palimpsest, weaving a sharp little thriller through the middle of it. So far, the Tor.com line of ebook novellas is living up to expectations, and my expectations were high. ***