Didn’t really know what to expect from this book but I kept hearing raving reviews of his different series and was curious so I included it in one of my hauls.

What is it about?

Armies fucked up using robots in wars and now some areas of the planet have become inhabitable due to mindless weapons of mass destruction roaming free. The solution: animal-cyborgs. Not the end of mass destruction, just the mindless aspect of it.

The story is centred around Rex, one of these animal cyborgs. Initially dispatched in a Mexican state to eradicate an anarchist rebellion threatening US business interests. Working as a team with other such cyborgs (a bear, a lizard and Bees (just, Bees)) under the command of a Murray, well known for his dictatorial tendencies.

Shit happens and Rex and his team have to confront the fact that their master is not a good guy. And they are given basically free will.

A bit more

It was funny reading this story after The Murderbot Diaries. The hierarchy system implemented in the cyborgs is extremely similar to the governor module in Murderbot. With similar effects on the characters and how it drives the plot initially, as well as the discussion around alienation or compulsion.

But the story takes a different path. Whereas in Murderbot, non-human intelligences are well-known and acknowledged, this is not the case here. The whole plot resolves about the different kind of intelligences the team and other characters represent and how they are accepted, or not, or taken advantage of, by humans.

In the background, the main antagonist remains faceless companies, their power and their role in driving the action, them being the real mindless actor behind the scene rather than robots or cyborgs.

Final word

Recommended. Maybe not the most gripping book I ever read but I enjoyed the different themes of the book and Rex’s character growth which reminded me of the robot character in The Turing Option by Marvin Minsky and Harry Harrison. Will definitely read the other two books of the series.