Bee Speaker - Adrian Tchaikovsky

You know what? I sometimes struggle when Adrian Tchaikovsky puts out a new book. Because I tend to explode with breathless enthusiasm, and then wonder whether I'm overdoing it. The problem, though, is that I have to keep doing it, because the man keeps turning out truly excellent work. Annoyingly, therefore, I have to say that with Bee Speaker, he's done it again. 

This book is the third in a series that started with Dogs of War, which was probably my favourite story of 2017. You can read it as a standalone as well, I think, but it definitely helps to have the context from Dogs and 2021's Bear Head. Because this is a story of a world that's broken, and about the  results of best intentions in trying to fix it from far, far away. Because this is a post-collapse Earth. One where we all just fought each other a little too long, and a little too hard. Where hubris and cruelty edged out empathy and humanity, where faith and humanity lost out to CEO's burning rainforests to try and make themselves immortal. But, it's a world surrounded by marvels. Because before things got out of hand, there was Mars. A Mars colonised by genetically engineered life, and regular people, who managed to survive the collapse of Earth, build something together in the harshest conditions, and who are now casting an eye back toward where they came from. Or at least, some version of them did. Because the people who live on Mars, these days, are different to how we might remember them. But they're still people. Even the ones who aren't.

That includes a very diverse cast indeed, a crew of adventurers looking to answer a call for help from Bees. The distributed intelligence called Bees, you see, helped save Mars once, when it was falling into collapse, and now a version of Bees is somewhere on Earth, calling for help. And so help is coming. Help looks like a reptilian sniper with an attitude problem, who can dial their own internal temperature up and down to move from cold strategy sessions to explosive action at the twitch of a dial. And A Dog, a canine hybrid originally built for war, now looking to build something new. And a couple of regular humans, whose ability to survive on the grounds of post-Collapse earth is rather open to question. Because this isn't the place their ancestors left, no. There's shades of A Canticle for Leibowitz here in a monastery that worships Bees, in the raiding gang of bunker dwellers obsessed with their own ideas of chivalry, while holding a dark secret in their hears, in the Factory, a place which keeps turning out Dogs, both as protection and as a means of influence, even when they no longer quite fit in a world reduced to subsistence agriculture in the ruins of abundance. 

Man, Tchaikovsky has a lot going on. He's always had big ideas, and this is definitely a whole mixture of them. But it's also an adventure, as our band of adventurers try to help, and even as they work on making things better, the sparks they use to do that may set the world on fire.  The story combines high-concept thought with some adrenaline-soaked action, with a dash of philosophy and a desire to ask big questions. As both the Martians and those they've come to help struggle with whether they want help, whether they should help, what happens next - and in some cases, what the consequences of action will be. Because four travellers may change the world, and not necessarily for the better. In fairness, the characters...oh, Tchaikovsky has always had a gift for off-kilter viewpoints, and here we are again, as he puts us into heads which are familiar, in a way, and also strange in others, with drives we can't always entirely fathom, but where understanding is always seemingly just within reach. It's smart, and its different and it may give you a headache. 

The post-apocalypse narrative carries a familiar framework, if perhaps not a familiar conclusion, and the paths wended through the story are replete with both surprises and moments of genuine wonder. It is, in a word, a Tchaikovsky book, and as with all of them, it's a bloody good time, and definitely worth picking up.

The Venetian Heretic - Christian Cameron

The Venetian Heretic is the start of a new historical fiction series from the impressively prolific Christian Cameron, whose excellent sci-fi and fantasy work I’ve spoken about here before. Amusingly, at one point I suggested his Deep Black was reminiscent of 16th century Venice, - and here we are, a year or so later, looking at another of his stories, set in, well, 17th century Venice. What’s a hundred years between us, eh? In any event, this story begins with professional swordsman Richard Hughes, whose chance rescue of someone in trouble on the canal-lined streets of Venice leads quickly to mystery, murder, and mayhem. Well, and duelling, conspiracy, and murder. And, well, some theater. Hughes is paddling in the edges of deep water, and inclined perhaps to get more than a little wet.

Hughes is the central character, but if I’m honest, the most vividly realised one is Venice herself, the Italian city on the lagoon, at a time when she was less tourist trap, and more incipient global power. The marble bridges over dark waters are described in vivid detail, and the politics that embraces everyone, from the nobility to the gondoliers, twines through the water and the soaring buildings towering beside them. It’s a city of ideas, and of brutal realities, where blood is spilled as quickly as a breath, and where art, where opera is as important as swordplay, and sometimes just as deadly. The prose is rich and affectionate, and brings the city to life, with a warmth, a depth and an energy that is impossible to deny. Cameron’s Venice has a sense of place, of history, and feels at once grand and intimately human.

Onto that stage, no pun intended, steps Richard Hughes - duellist, occasional Englishman, a man who would, on the whole, rather not go swimming in uncomfortably deep waters - metaphorical or otherwise. But he’s also thoughtful, intelligent, passionate, and loyal to his friends and his own sense of honour. Which makes for a likeable protagonist, and one whose penchant for getting into bigger and bigger trouble, following the ripples of larger and larger events to see where they lead, is extremely compelling reading. Hughes is a small fish in the great sea of state, passing on information where he can to help his friends or himself survive on the edges of Society, but he’s also someone striving to do better, to be a version of themselves they can look up to in the mirror. Hughes is a businessman, yes, a killer, absolutely, but one with a code, with ethics, with virtues. Whether Hughes is a good man  is definitely open to question as the story opens, but as the web of influence, murder and politics grows ever more byzantine, his bravery, loyalty and firm friendships become ever more important.. He’s a charming, funny protagonist, whose bouts of pragmatic cynicism are backed by moments of genuine heroism, one whose flaws highlight his virtues, and whose skills with a blade are backed up by a thoughtful investigative mind.Just as well, since he spend smooch of the story being a (variably willing) detective of sorts. In this, he’s aided by a rich cast of men and women who never feel less than real themselves. SOme of them are historical figures, others…less so, but they all have enough detail, enough depth, enough truth in them to be compelling in their own right.

Speaking of detective work - well, this story is a mystery at heart, I think. With murder and mystery at the centre of the narrative, there’s more twists and turns here than , well, between the canals of Venice itself. There’s duels, and opera, and assassins, and religion (and the Inquisition). There’s a dash of romance, and more than one dark moment on dark nights. There’s explosions and politics and passion and more than a little family drama. This is a story with, well, layers. It rewards careful reading, and it is also bloody difficult to stop reading once you get started. I had a great time with Hughes and his Venice, and I suspect you will too. Give it a whirl!