Hammered (Jenny Casey)

It'd been awhile since I'd used my limited leisure reading time for science fiction, but Elizabeth Bear makes me glad I took the chance. _Hammered_ is an engaging romp that stays true to genre tradition without pillaging and reshaping it into a tepid Heinlen or Hubbard clone. Bear's finest triumph (in this reader's opinion) is the way she creates a woman-as-protagonist without allowing Jenny's "femaleness" to be the sole defining point of importance. Not since Metroid Prime has a character been so thoroughly yet incidentally feminine. It's hard to believe, I know -- but there are billions of us who live every single day as a woman, and who do not find this state to be a point of novelty; so do not dismiss _Hammered_ for using this point-of-view character for the sake of gimmick. Jenny Casey is tough without being cold, and vulnerable without being weak. Like the future world and the book she inhabits, she is complex but not inaccessibly complicated -- and I could most heartily recommend this story to genre fans and tentative readers alike. Excellent stuff.

A thoroughly enjoyable book with a very real heroine. A great change from the usual approach. I hope this author has a long and successful career.

Sometimes, when you read dark science fiction, you feel like there's a disjoint between the world and the characaters in that world. In Hammered, the characters fit well into the world. You get the sense they grew up there, they belong there and they'll probably die there. Along the way, they'll help tell a compelling story that, unlike Goldilocks, is just right. Not too much detail, not too little. Not to fast or slow. Not too long or short. A tale that has you turning the pages because you want to see what happens to the characters next. And Bear does not disappoint with what the characters do, not even to the end. Highly recommended.

In 2062 Hartford, Connecticut, former Canadian soldier Jenny Casey is feeling the impact of several decades of military service as her reconstructed artificial body parts show their age with the technology wearing out. The last of the fully wired warriors still living, Jenny, though only one month shy of turning fifty, feels death stalks her. Physically hurting and mentally weary, Jenny hides on the means streets from her former employers, calling herself the Maker. Razorface, carrying a HAMMERED teen, kicks at Jenny's door at just past three in the morning. Hyperex, a special drug made exclusively for the American and Canadian armies, has made it to the streets. Kids are dying and though Jenny would prefer to remain in hiding, she reluctantly makes inquiries on the mean streets and on the Internet. This brings her to the attention of those who want her dead and others who want to lab rat her. She has no hope of learning the truth, but Jenny has lived for decades without hope. Soon the investigation turns deadlier and seemingly reaches the higher levels of her government. This is a dark urban noir science fiction starring a fabulous anti-heroine who has no hopes, no dreams, and no future. The cast and the future Internet make readers believe that they are in the latter half of the twenty-first century. The exposing of the conspiracy is fun to follow although readers will have difficulty accepting how relatively easy Jenny obtains information since the highest levels of Canadian government is involved (who was on Cheney's energy taskforce?). Still fans of deep character driven dark futuristic investigative tales along the lines of Philip K. Dick will want to be HAMMERED by Elizabeth Bear. Harriet Klausner