Hammered

First of a trilogy, this near-future tale is about a woman for whom time is running out.

Set in the mid-21st Century, Jenny Casey is a former member of the Canadian Special Forces. She was part of the UN peacekeeping troops sent to New England in reaction to the food riots of the 2030's. She decided to stay in Hartford, Connecticut, mostly hiding from her government. A new, and very deadly, drug, a Canadian military enhancement drug called The Hammer, has become available on the streets of Hartford. Not even Razorface, the local crime lord, can discover the supply route. Much more important to Jenny is that her cybernetic enhancements are failing.

Years earlier, in a different war, Casey was severely injured. She walked out of the show more hospital with a metallic left arm, an artificial eye and various internal "improvements." If she doesn't have the required surgery now, she will die. Traveling to Toronto on the track of The Hammer, she is roped into having the surgery (she is pushing fifty years old). Casey is given a chance at what might be the ultimate pilot job (she is a former medevac pilot). It has to do with the "space race" moving to Mars, and shifting from Russia vs America (which is now a Christian Fascist state) to Canada vs China.

Bear does an excellent job from start to finish. I live just a few miles from Hartford, so I was most interested in her portrayal of the city (she gets it right). The book has enough high-tech and near future dystopia to keep anyone happy. This is a gem of a book. show less

Entertaining and readable cyberpunk thriller that is transitioning to another subgenre for the next volume. It's got a creaky ex-military cyborg whose metal arm is sending her to a early grave living n a bad part of town, friends with gangsters and cops, it's got ronin bounty hunters and evil corporations and AIs and hacking and VR, and it all hangs together divertingly well.

I don't read much sci-fi, but I picked up this because I follow Bear's blog and wanted to read more of her books. I brought this along on a road trip and ended up reading the entire book in one day!

"Hammered" has a very unique premise, and that is part of the appeal. Jenny Casey is almost 50, and her body is tired. She's lived half her life with a cutting-edge artificial limb and neuro technology that are no longer cutting edge - they fail a little more each day, leaving her crippled by pain and flashbacks. Old ghosts from the past began to trail her, and it turns out she's still considered an asset by the government. This all takes place in a grim 2062 where the United States is a wrecked country and Canada is a super-power (and leader show more in space exploration). show less

Hammered by Elizabeth Bear is a fine piece of science fiction writing. I am on a science fiction reading jag ever since I read the Ancillary series by Ann Leckie. I had not heard about Bear until I got a blurb about a new novel by her that is published by TOR. I did some research and found out Bear has a substantial list of works. She is Canadian and Canada figures prominently in this series, and I can only say this novel WOWed! me. If you liked the Ancillary series read this series. The first novel in the "Jenny Casey" series was great escapist reading.

The series features a 50 year-old ex-combat soldier with a metal prosthetic arm and eye. Officially the Canadian military classes her as a cyborg. The time is in the future - 2062 and show more Global Warming has happened and the world is full of wars about water and land. There is nothing new about that. What is new and refreshing is the way that Bear tells this story.

I loved the idea of an older woman heroine and just had to read for that reason. I have already started book two in the series Scardown. show less

An entertaining, fast-moving near future novel from first time novelist Elizabeth Bear. The plot is well conceived and covers lots of ground (just look at the genre listing!). There were a few times when I thought the story was starting to feel a bit clichéd but inevitably that was when Bear threw in a nice surprise. The writing is assured and appropriately gritty at times. The real strength of the novel is an impressive cast of well realized characters, both good guys and bad. I especially enjoyed the incongruous pairing of Razorface and Mitch. The ending raises more questions than it answers, so it's hard to argue that this is a terribly satisfying stand alone novel. You will definitely want to move on to the second book of the show more series. An impressive debut novel. show less

Jenny Casey is a war hero, but she's also a middle-aged woman with increasingly debilitating disabilities and a drug habit. Then tainted batches of Hammer (the combat drug she was addicted to) pop up on the streets of her home town. While her friends trace the drug back to its source, Jenny is coerced into joining a dangerous research project.

I really wanted to like this book, but it frustrated me all too often. This is the first in a trilogy, but there's a lot of backstory to this universe. I generally love in media res, but all the characters made vague statements like "She wouldn't let him try--not after the last time" and what happened "last time" is never explained! There are a half dozen different point-of-view characters, and show more all but two or three of them are unnecessary. I'd have preferred a single view point with a single tense than mishmash of every character even tangentially involved getting their own chapters. The narrative randomly jumps forward and backward in time, going from three weeks ago in one person's narrative to the present told from Jenny's pov to fifteen years ago...it's needlessly confusing.

I also don't see why the entire subplot of Razorface, Barb, Mitch, and the tainted Hammer existed. This is only the first book in the trilogy, so perhaps it will gain greater importance later, but as it stood it just provided more proof that Unitec was up to no good. Obviously! We already know! 50% of this book doesn't need to switch between Razorface, Mitch, etc's povs in order to tell the really basic story of "Unitec dumped some tainted drugs onto the street to test them." Look, I just did it in one sentence! Hell, the characters themselves figure it out in the first few chapters, so I'm confused by how drawn-out it was. It was like Bear had originally written this drug war as a stand-alone story, and then awkwardly grafted it onto Jenny Casey's.

I did like the characters. Jenny Casey is my favorite kind of badass--the kind that's very damaged but has mostly come to terms with it, and still inspires a mixture of fear and awe in those she meets. The lady psychiatrist was pretty fun too, with her blase attitude toward romance and sex. But my appreciation for the characters was hampered by the often unnatural dialog (there's a great collection of examples here) and the fact that by the end, half the dialog was in untranslated French. I do not speak French! When I come across whole pages of unintelligible dialog in nineteenth century novels, at least those authors have the excuse of assuming their readers are polyglots. Bear is writing in the 2000s! At least give us endnotes or something! (ps, sex scenes often have unintentionally hilarious dialog, but the repitious "je t'aime"s and "mon amour"s tipped it over into farce)

And I did like Jenny Casey's plot. I would have loved to read more scenes of her figuring out how to use her new body, or pilot the space ship. What is there is written pretty well, although Bear has to strain to get her prose beyond "workman-like". If there had been more of Casey's adventure, and less incredibly obvious and unnecessary street fighting, I would have enjoyed this more. As it stands, I doubt I'll bother reading the rest of the series. show less

I really did enjoy this story of an older ex-soldier who happens to be female (yeah for characters that are characters first and gendered second). She's Jenny Casey, a former Canadian Special Forces warrior. It's 2062 and she's hammering on the door of 50, her body is giving her a lot of pain and she's starting to have more flashbacks than is comfortable. She's reluctant to get involved with the Canadian Government again but her life is on the line.

I did really enjoy this one, yes there were some flaws and some bits that dragged a little but it is a first novel. I do read her blog on LiveJournal and enjoy it too, which is part of the reason I picked this one up. I would recommend it to people who like people based SF not battle based show more SF.

This story is about Jenny, her life, loves, family, issues and friends. It's about a future that's just believable and just beyond tomorrow. Definitely a keeper! show less