enne📚 reviewed Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Green City Wars
4 stars
Green City Wars is a blend of Redwall, Rats of NIMH, and capitalist dystopia.
The worldbuilding hook is that humans have created green, renewable energy cities by genetically and pharmaceutically modifying animals to be more intelligent. These animals become an invisible underclass, taking care of all of the pesky cleaning and maintenance tasks that humans can't be bothered with, paid in drugs that keep their higher intelligence functions running (at least for a little bit). The protagonist Skotch is a trash raccoon turned freelance investigator, and is put on the case of a dangerous missing mouse by an old boss he thought he was done with.
If a lion could speak, the old human saw goes, could we understand it? And yes, it turns out you can understand the lion. But the act of reworking the lion to allow it to talk removes enough of its lion-ness …
Green City Wars is a blend of Redwall, Rats of NIMH, and capitalist dystopia.
The worldbuilding hook is that humans have created green, renewable energy cities by genetically and pharmaceutically modifying animals to be more intelligent. These animals become an invisible underclass, taking care of all of the pesky cleaning and maintenance tasks that humans can't be bothered with, paid in drugs that keep their higher intelligence functions running (at least for a little bit). The protagonist Skotch is a trash raccoon turned freelance investigator, and is put on the case of a dangerous missing mouse by an old boss he thought he was done with.
If a lion could speak, the old human saw goes, could we understand it? And yes, it turns out you can understand the lion. But the act of reworking the lion to allow it to talk removes enough of its lion-ness that, when you ask, What’s it like, being a lion? the thing can only shrug with the new shoulders you’ve given it.
Humans are almost entirely off page in this novel. There's a lot of Redwall-esque animal stereotypes about how animal psychology would translate into something more human, but there's also rationale that these animals were invented in different countries and so have adopted some of the language and factionalism from said humans. I also quite enjoy how much Skotch as a narrator constantly muses philosophically about the unexpected complexity that has arisen from all of these changes.
“Ran into some trouble with…” Skotch pauses. “Let’s say just about everyone.”
Structurally, this book reminds me a bit of Tchaikovsky's Service Model. Skotch wanders through a long sequence of factions and areas that largely functions as worldbuilding. Both he and the story meander quite a bit; it makes a lot of the tension feel like it's coming from sudden action scenes rather than careful plotting. More, having the big reveal feel so telegraphed (early on to my eyes at least) removed extra tension and makes me wonder how well this book would stand up on a second read. Really, it's Skotch's internal narration and relationships that carries this book.
Overall, this was a fun anti-capitalist adventure snack.