I read and enjoyed Autonomous – see my review. So when I saw this offering pop up on Netgalley, I immediately requested it and was glad to get a copy.
BLURB: Destry is a top network analyst with the Environmental Rescue Team, an ancient organization devoted to preventing ecosystem collapse. On the planet Sask-E, her mission is to terraform an Earthlike world, with the help of her taciturn moose, Whistle. But then she discovers a city that isn’t supposed to exist, hidden inside a massive volcano. Torn between loyalty to the ERT and the truth of the planet’s history, Destry makes a decision that echoes down the generations.
Centuries later, Destry’s protege, Misha, is building a planetwide transit system when his worldview is turned upside-down by Sulfur, a brilliant engineer from the volcano city. Together, they uncover a dark secret about the real estate company that’s buying up huge swaths of the planet―a secret that could destroy the lives of everyone who isn’t Homo sapiens. Working with a team of robots, naked mole rats, and a very angry cyborg cow, they quietly sow seeds of subversion. But when they’re threatened with violent diaspora, Misha and Sulfur’s very unusual child faces a stark choice: deploy a planet-altering weapon, or watch their people lose everything they’ve built on Sask-E.
REVIEW: In common with many sci fi authors, Newitz is highly critical of the capitalist economic model. It’s a system that Newitz roundly critiques in both Autonomous and The Terraformers. In this far, far future adventure – Ronnie has helped design a pristine planet to resemble Earth before Humanity came along and spoilt it. And now she needs it to make a profit… Of course, she hasn’t got her own hands dirty – carefully designed workers with all sorts of modifications have been the ones toiling away to ensure the planet’s eco-system keeps ticking over as perfectly as possible. Destry is one such worker and in the opening section of the book, is a main protagonist.
I loved the modified, cyborg animals, particularly Moose, who is Destry’s Mount and can carry her anywhere she needs to go, because Moose can also fly. However, he has a limiter on his brain so that he can only speak using single-syllable words. Though at least he can express himself about a wide range of subjects – Blessed models are built with a limiter in their brains so they can only talk about their work, even though they have the intellect to understand and have opinions on so much more.
Essentially, this is a story about a class struggle that spans centuries, set upon a beautiful world that is in the process of being settled with the aim of making the corporation owning the land the maximum amount of money. And although that might sound like a bleak premise, the book isn’t. Newitz has given us a beautiful world which she depicts with great vividness with all sorts of quirky creatures peopling it. Along with dear old Moose, I also rather fell in love with Scrubjay, a flying, talking train. Yep – I know it sounds like a bonkers episode of Thomas the Tank Engine, but I was able to suspend my disbelief sufficiently to get thoroughly caught up in the story. In amongst the anger at the exploitation and inevitable rebellion and bloodshed, there are lovely moments of working together, companionship, love affairs and the sharing of food.
I came away from reading this one with a smile on my face – and a sense that being alive, with friends and family to love and share food with, living on a planet where there is so much beauty, in a body that is my very own – makes me very fortunate. Highly recommended for fans of sci fi colony adventures with a strong environmental message. While I obtained an audiobook arc of The Terraformers from the publisher via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
9/10
Brainfluff 