Beasts of the Wild Black by RJ Barker
I would like to thank Podium for an advance copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review
Published - Out Now
Publisher - Podium
Price - £3.73 ebook £11.00 audio
Years ago, Deep Strike cadet Min Law was left behind during what was meant to be a routine operation. Though he survived, the resulting trauma almost ended his career. Now, as captain of the DST Thunberg, he is preparing to take his crew on a similar journey to a seemingly quiet world following a garbled distress signal. The mission is simple on paper: find the source of the call, offer aid, return home.
But nothing is simple in the Wild Black at the edges of the unexplored universe. As the crew of the Thunberg searches for the signal's source, they find strange ships and corpses that shouldn't be there. The mysteries begin to pile up. What happened out here? And why does some of the technology look horribly familiar?
Fortunately, Min's team of animal counterparts is prepared for anything. The bear, Sitka Pete, is eight hundred pounds of loyal muscle. The rooks are quick and coordinated, perfect for reconnaissance. And the cats, Oz and Hinder, well, they're just cats. But together they're more than up for whatever the Wild Black can throw at them—even if this region isn't quite so unexplored after all . . .
Our relationship with animals is a constant source of fascination to me. These creatures who outnumber us, live in our homes and depending on your point of view either we own or own us (if I don’t feed our Yorkie at the right time she gets bossy!). In science fiction the concept of uplifting animals so they can communicate with us or think like us has been around a long time ranging from smart dolphins to civilisations of spiders. Now RJ Barker starts a new novella series with the excellent Beasts of the Wild Black combining action adventure with some interesting thoughts on what humans learn from animals too….oh yes and SPACE CATS ahem.
Captain Min Law of the DST Thunberg comes out of Fallspace near a an unknown world far out in space. Suddenly his ship is under attack and forced after a daring attack to work out what has happened. With his crew of humans, uplifted cats, ravens and even a bear the crew find a secret from Earth’s distant past is awaiting a dangerous rediscovery.
Barker is well known for creating fantasy stories with intricate world so here is his most explicit voyage into science fiction and it delivers a feast of ideas plus an action packed story in a very tight and engaging novella form that safe to say I’d be surprised you put down before you finish it.
The fascinating central idea is that humans discover they can travel faster than the speed of light but this mysterious and unsettling dimension known as Fallspace has hugely disturbing impacts on the human mind. The solution uplifting creatures to work as co-crew. So we have ships with a rookery of rooks that are engineers, pilots and when needed the attack ships of the main vessel. One thing is clear in this uplift process the rooks may now talk and use equipment but still are rooks so as an example we see they have an ever changing status hierarchy, love the shiny and need a lot of help to focus.
The core relationship though here is between Min and Hinder. Why yes she is a cat but here the cats are particularly interested in using mech suits and carrying large and devastating weaponry. Min is for most of this story bar some flashbacks here a seasoned Captain calm in danger, not bloodthirsty but incredibly pragmatic and crucially treats all his crew as equals. Hinder is clearly a cat with that strange sense of merciless joy at destruction and finally being big enough to be the Big Cat she always thought she was but also has tactics and loyalty. Rather than ownership this is that much more honest relationship of a human and an animal who know each other so well they just work well together. Hinder is a delight to watch be that with a sly sense of humour or just unleashing all her suit’s wesponry on a foe.
This sets up nearly the main storyline. Why yes an unknown world does indeed hold massive danger and here Barker has a wonderfully unsettling antagonist and you’ll learn to read the word plink with dread. Dark corridors, some body horror and extreme action all await a within a stranger ruin and Barker throws us into the action with their trademark flare for action scenes that carry emotion and pace. It’s hugely effective and you’ll fear for all of our crew and who is going to get out of this alive.
But all of this still serves a bigger story and throughout Min’s main tale we get interludes of human history told in the form of lectures at Min’s academy. This sets the scene of r what the Deep Strike force is all about. How the wider galactic community find humans and our particular uplifted species slightly strange for wanting to explore the vastness of space - The Wild Black of the title that is known for being able to go from start to extreme danger in a second. Barker posits that only through learning to communicate ourselves with animals do humans finally realise what a mess they’ve been and both clear up their act but also rediscover our purpose to be the galaxy’s explorers. Barker does this in less than 200 pages a few centuries of immense change and yet it never feels like clunky exposition and all serves the wider story and its themes.
One key theme is that Min was once a castaway but thanks to the wider ethics and compassion of the Deep Strike team and being part of a human animal community he survived and did not fall into despair and ultimately became a better person. Not everyone is so lucky as we will find out…
For a tale of action, space cats in mecha suits and space battles this is also surprising emotional, optimistic and life affirming in that we can do better and we are never totally alone. Extremely entertaining, brimming with ideas and yes SPACE CATS safe to say this is very strongly recommended!