Hammered

[sawyl]

Again with the first novels, this time Elizabeth Bear's Hammered, which won a Locus back in the heady days of 2006. The book, set in the 2060s, is the first of a trilogy to feature Jenny Casey, a Canadian soldier whose time in the forces has left her with a cybernetic arm and an artificial eye. It also features a delightful conceit: a real historical character who gets caught up in the action in a complicated way. In this case, physicist and all round smart guy Richard Feynman, who also happens to be dead.

The story opens with a poisoning that all but happens on Jenny Casey's doorstep in Hartford CT. Nosing around at the behest of the local kingpin, she starts to uncover signs of a conspiracy involving a big corporation that churns out nasty reaction enhancing drugs for the military. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Colonel Fred Valens has come up with a cunning plan to rebuild his damaged reputation using a range of ethically dubious methods, which include a series of experiments on his former lab rat, one MWO Casey.

Although Hammered is obviously the first novel in a series — not all the plot lines are resolved at the end of the book — it still works well a standalone novel. I liked the settings, especially the decision to set the action somewhere other than New York, and the way that Toronto was clearly a fully functional modern metropolis while Hartford was shown as still suffering from the aftermath of a civil collapse severe enough to require UN intervention.

I also liked the characters, especially Jenny Casey who, unlike almost every other cyberpunk heroine, is entering middle-age and whose cybernetic prostheses are painful and often more trouble than they're worth. Her damage, both physical and psychological, is explicable given her grim upbringing and horrible war experiences, but it never dominates her character because she is determined not to let it. And having the gall to include Dick Feynman? And to include him a way that is not contrived and allows him to play a major part in the narrative? Very cool.