Hammered

Kudos to Elizabeth Bear for choosing the most unlikely city in the US for a dystopic future-tech science fiction novel: Hartford, CT. Seriously. I grew up near Hartford, and I have to say that there was very little that appealed to me. Sure, it has insurance companies and.... and.... umm.... a river. Anyway, after giving it some thought, I figured, "Why not Hartford?" After all, if the...more

Kudos to Elizabeth Bear for choosing the most unlikely city in the US for a dystopic future-tech science fiction novel: Hartford, CT. Seriously. I grew up near Hartford, and I have to say that there was very little that appealed to me. Sure, it has insurance companies and.... and.... umm.... a river. Anyway, after giving it some thought, I figured, "Why not Hartford?" After all, if the United States has collapsed under its own weight to the point where Canada has to come in and do peacekeeping operations, Hartford is probably even more of a hell-hole than most other more made-for-fiction cities. I'm sure Ms. Bear had the same thought, since she grew up in the same area that I did ("Hartford? What a hell-hole THAT would make!") and Hartford fits the bill indeed.... Jenny Casey had a life, but not a very happy one. Estranged from her family, maimed in the service of her country, crippled by the cybernetics that were supposed to make up for the loss of her arm and her eye, she's come down to Hartford to wait to die. She has a cat and a home and a certain reputation for being a tough old lady in the rough streets of Hartford, but as far as she's concerned she's a used-up cripple whose worth to this world has pretty much been blown away. But this world has other plans for her, of course. A knockoff of a Canadian military drug has hit the streets. A police officer has been found dead, murdered. These two events bring Jenny Casey back into the world, angry and resentful and, let's face it, kind of depressed. I can't say I blame her. As with so many veterans, she was used up, chewed up and spit out by the military she gave her life (and eye and arm) to. She feels no debt to them, or to her country, but her very few friends in Hartford are important enough to get her to start asking questions. And we all know what that leads to.... Elizabeth Bear has done a very nice job with this book. It's very real - multi-sensory descriptions are something that a lot of writers, new and veteran, overlook, but they add a certain depth to a story that can't be achieved otherwise. It does require some focus, though, as there are several parallel character tracks that don't really meet up very often, as well as flashbacks that require you to read the chapter heading so you know when you are. Reading this in a distracting environment, such as the staff room at my school, is probably not the best way to enjoy the book.... Anyway, this is the first of three, I believe. I'll have to find a way of getting the next book....   hide