#bear head

- for the pet whump crowd and others who like good sci-fi.

I read the first of two books a couple of years ago and I quite liked it, and now I’ve read the sequel and it was amazing!

Book 1: Dogs of War, Adrian Tchaikovsky

Book 2: Bear Head, Adrian Tchaikovsky

The books take place in a not so distant future where bioengineered animals are intelligent as humans, but still keep a lot of their animal traits. The author has studied zoology and you can really feel that his books have benefited from him thinking deeply about animal traits.

The first book focuses on Rex, designed to be a living weapon complete with reward and control circuits in his brain. He really, really wants to be a good dog, and to his master, being a good dog means killing lots of people. But what happens when his master is tried as a war criminal?

The second book - which I absolutely loved - takes place on the construction site of the first settlement on Mars. It is a time where bioengineered animals have been granted some human rights, but there are political forces who see the opportunity to gather support by painting the animals as something other - dangerous, barbaric and needing to be controlled. My favourite main character in this book is an amazing academic and activist - who happens to be a bear - but all characters are really clearly painted and the environments are interesting and thought-provoking. This book is very relatable to today’s political situation, which makes me wonder how it will work in a decade, but which also made it feel great to read right now.

The characters are very clearly drawn and relatable, they are smart and their actions feel reasonable and in-character. The plot is fresh and fast-paced, the sci-fi elements feel believable. I cared about all the characters and was invested in the story.

There are strong currents of pet whump and living weapon in these books, so if you like that sort of thing I really recommend you checking them out.

Book Recommendations Masterlist

fuck yeah more Bees

i missed my unhinged unintentionally exponentially intelligent biomechanical neumann-capable swarm intelligence Bees

she's also just an ever-increasing variety of self-modifying cyborg bees