【 BEAR HEAD 】

book #2 in the Dogs of War series

Genre: Sci-fi
Audience: Adult
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Published: January 2021
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Pages: 400 (paperback)

This is turning into a super interesting series, and I’m actually really excited to find out where it goes with book 3. I think I preferred book 2 to the first instalment, though they are really quite different to each other. I found the first book (Dogs of War) to be fascinating and unique, but the structure jumped forward in time rapidly and relentlessly. Whereas this book felt more stable and continuous.

I’ve heard that you don’t have to read the books in order, but having now read 1 and 2, I highly recommend doing so. There’s some serious character arc continuation from the first book that I think would really be lost and make everything much less enjoyable if you were starting from Bear Head.

So, in book 2, we find ourselves on Mars for the most part. Bees has become very unpopular and Honey has become an uncomfortably famous figure with many people who’d rather she wasn’t around. But the the POV we start with is quite random. His name is Jimmy, and he’s on Mars as part of the first wave of builders who are establishing what will become a colony there. And in order for that to work, these builders are augmented humans (bioforms, dare we say?) designed to survive in the subpar conditions, as they work towards making Mars a more human-friendly place.

And I don’t want to give much of the plot away, but let’s just say, our favourite characters find their way to Mars and totally disrupt Jimmy’s life.

This is even more deeply entrenched in the politics of the world than book one was, and there’s some pretty serious themes going on. The corrupted, villainous figures that Tchaikovsky has created in this book are next level evil. By toying with the question of morality and free will, this is horrifying to imagine what some people could and would do with total control.

And I think control – particularly direct control of fellow human beings – is the key theme of this story. While Dogs of War looks at free will and who “qualifies” as worthy of it, this book takes things further to ask, what happens when it all goes wrong?

My favourite part of this book is the further character growth that Honey does. For a character who seems to know it all and be so well considered, she finds herself in some pretty complicated situations that anyone would have a hard time working out what the right the to do would be – and if there even is a right answer at all.

This series is definitely a great one for those who love sci-fi stories that tackle real-world themes and explore unnerving futures that don’t feel completely out of reach. It feels like this story is escalating and growing with each instalment. So, as I say, bring on book three.

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Title: Bear Head
Series: Dogs of War
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
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Honey the genetically engineered bear starts a revolution on the Red Planet in the new novel from the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time.

WELCOME TO HELL CITY, MARS
Jimmy Martin has a sore head.

He’s used to smuggling illegal data in his headspace. But this is the first time it has started talking to him.

The data claims to be a distinguished academic, author and civil rights activist.

It also claims to be a bear.

A bear named Honey.

Jimmy has nothing against bioforms – he’s one himself, albeit one engineered out of human stock – and works with them everyday in Hell City, building the future, staking mankind’s claim to a new world: Mars.

The problem is that humanity isn’t the only entity with designs on the Red Planet. Out in the airless desert there is another presence. A novel intelligence, elusive, unknowable and potentially lethal.

And Honey is here to make contact with it, whether Jimmy likes it or not.