I requested Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Green City Wars because I was intrigued by the premise – Philip Marlow meets Redwall with a raccoon private investigator. This is not an inaccurate description. BUT! It’s Phillip Marlow meets Redwall written by Adrian Tchaikovsky. When I understood the premise of the world in Green City Wars, I had to lie down for a bit. It is so deeply dystopian. The humans have created what may be a utopia for themselves, and to achieve it, they’ve bio-engineered small animals, amphibians, and birds to be “little helpers.” Because humans can’t find a way to build a utopia that isn’t founded on suffering, or a society that isn’t built on exploitation. Scream!
So the foundation of this noir mystery is dark, dark, dark. And it is gritty – animals die. It is also absurd and funny. Consider if you will the wisdom of The Divine Jeff, “Life, uhhh, finds a way.”
Which gets us to why you should consider the audiobook – at one point, you get to hear Lulu the pigeon exclaim to Skotch in a German accent, “but Skotch, there are squirrels, with guns!” The narrator, John Pirhalla, gives an appropriately weary performance. The horrors experienced by the Little Helpers comes screaming out from the matter of fact narration. There is a German name given to the bio-engineered animals, but I don’t have the text and couldn’t find a spelling, so Little Helpers they shall be called.
Skotch is tasked to find a mouse, and the mouse has something everyone wants. And the thing might be worse than Skotch is led to believe initially. Isn’t that always the case? Or it might be amazing and radically improve life for The Little Helpers. Nobody is telling Skotch what’s going on and everyone assumes he knows.
Final verdict: it’s good. Very good. And very hard.
I received this as an advance listener copy from Macmillan Audio and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.
