Sly Mongoose-Tobias S. Buckell

Sly Mongoose
Tobias S. Buckell
Tor, Aug 2008, $25.95
ISBN: 9780765319203

The surface of Chilio is so hostile with its perpetual storms it is deadly to humans. Aztec descendents fled enslavement by aliens on New Anegada to settle on this lethal orb, but built domed cities floating high in the atmosphere above the deadly planet in order to avoid the excessive temperatures, the CRYSTAL RAIN and the crushing atmospheric pressure.

However, over time the technology has become lost, the cities in the sky decaying rapidly, and the residents unable to pay for infrastructure repair or spare parts of the machines that keep them alive. One of the floating towns Yatapek survives mostly due to a mining machine working the surface underneath the city; special physically apropos young men serve as mechanics as the ground suits needed to survive limit who can do the job. Fourteen years old repairman Timas is working on the surface when he sees an alien; he leaves his work to prove his startling discovery. Suddenly disaster strikes Yatapek and the other floating cities as invaders have arrived from space. Pepper, who has lived here decades past his peers as his insides are filled with alien gizmos that have kept him alive long after others he knew died (see RAGAMUFFIN) finds himself helping the people of Chilio in a war they cannot win, but to lose means extinction.

Letting time refresh the return to Chilio, Tobias S. Buckell provides an exhilarating outer space science fiction thriller that starts off with action as Pepper wearing a heat shield dives through the lethal atmosphere to the surface and never slows down until the final confrontation. The story line is fast-paced, but it is the cast who makes the plot entertaining. Fans will expect that of Pepper, but Timas makes the tale move briskly as the audience will believe he and the other mechanics are real and in turn that affirms the hostile conditions. Readers will relish SLY MONGOOSE as war has come to a forgotten unforgiving planet, but to know why requires reading about a planet with a humongous everlasting tempest (worse than that on Jupiter).

Harriet Klausner