Sly Mongoose

[sanguinity]

31. Tobias S. Buckell, Sly Mongoose

More space-opera-y Buckell goodness! This one is Azteca-centric and set on Chilo, the planet of the dense, poisonous, stormy atmosphere with the floating cities that showed up at the end of Ragamuffin. (Mm! I like stories where the environment has the force of a character.) This one is male-centric again, but didn't feel as men-all-the-time-men as Crystal Rain did -- the main character is a thirteen year-old-boy, his two foil characters are Pepper and a teenage girl from a wealthier city. (For the life of me, I cannot figure out what scene is portrayed on the cover -- is there a point where Pepper and Katerina are fighting together, outside the city, during the final battle? I can't remember it, if there is.)

Sly Mongoose is again a thematic shift from the first two -- I like that Buckell doesn't write the same book over and over -- with lots of thematic undercurrents about community-wide (nation-wide?) poverty, and trying to survive in an environment controlled by wealthy, powerful communities that don't much care if yours lives or dies (well, except that if the crisis gets too bad, they'd have to do something, and as much as they might resent that, their choices might well be intolerable to you). There are also discussions of how the privilege of wealth plays out on an interpersonal level, and women finding ways to get what they want despite the patriarchy they have to work around, past, and through. Buckell also continues a bit of the cyber-punkness of the previous novel, with thematic discussions of open-source democracy and consensus. (I kept expecting a stronger exploration/critique of that than I ever got; that's probably me projecting the book I want to read, rather than the books that Buckell has tended to write. There's chewiness in these books, but he generally goes heavy on the rollicking and light on the toothiness.)

And true to prediction, the story has telescoped out again from the previous books: again, there is more going on past the margins of the story than any of the characters can get a good look at. And because they can't get a good look at it, I can't get a good look at it. I crave book four.

Comments

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

I liked that series too! And spent a good while trying to figure out the cover scene!

[sanguinity]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who was confused!

[oddmonster.livejournal.com]

You had me at "dense, poisonous, stormy atmosphere with floating cities".

[sanguinity]

Hee -- you're not the only one. In his author notes, Buckell says he went to a lecture by a NASA scientist about how Venusian floating cities could be quite workable/habitable, and his mind ran away with him... :-D

[rydra_wong]

If you need any extra incentive, check out the YouTube trailer, which is made of pure concentrated awesome.

[sanguinity]

Movie trailers for books make me feel old. Even when they're pure concentrated awesome. ;-)

*remembers to go look up something that I had no time to look up when I was reading* Ah, so the Azteca use Fahrenheit. That, or publishers have assumed that American SF audiences have regressed...

[vass]

Is this the sort of series that it's important to read in order? I ask because I borrowed Sly Mongoose from the library, not knowing it was part of a series.

[sanguinity]

I don't think they're important to read in order. Pepper is a recurring character, but what you learn in this book won't spoil you for the other two. Most stuff that you need to know is explained in the book, although many things would have more meaning if you'd already read the other two. And I don't think there's that much in the way of book-to-book spoilers: the first two are set decades apart; the second two are separated by centuries; no two are set in the same place. When you go back to the earlier books you'll know a bit about how things must have come out in order to set up the next one, but these are the kind of books where the protagonists achieve their quests, so no big spoilers there.

[vass]

Thank you.

[firecat]

Thanks for this, I was wondering, since audible.com has Sly Mongoose and Halo but nothing else.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Are you living in my bedroom, somewhere behind stuff? Because your recent reviews include a lot of what's been sitting next to my bed for the last few weeks....

[sanguinity]

Hee! I wish I was! I like to burrow through other people's stacks of books!

So indulge my curiosity? What else is on that stack?

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Well, there was Buckell's Ragamuffin, and Cherie Priest's Fathom, and the usual assortment of mystery-candy (latest PD James and Linda Fairstein and Andrew Vachss), The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor, some Cory Doctorow, and a book on digital photography and an Oxford collection of American music writing and Potluck Paradise, a recipe book put out by the Minnesota State Historical Society. And a bunch more titles, mostly boring.

[sanguinity]

Aw! Potluck Paradise! :-D

It looks, perhaps, like this run on your books as dumb luck, because most of what's on my to-read stack right now is American history. Although my books have a way of spontaneously shuffling into a different order without telling me they're going to do so...

[chipmunk-planet.livejournal.com]

I thought the cover was where Pepper met the boy at first, but then they both have their helmets off. Hmm.

It's still an *awesome* front cover :D

[sanguinity]

*reexamines the front cover* If that's Timas, he's got girl-cleavage.

Yeah, it's an awesome front cover. (And there's a strandbeest on the back! More awesome!)