My Cultural Diet

After war and much environmental devastation, humanity has entered a new golden age thanks to environmentally friendly cities that run on solar power and recycle everything. People are now free to live a life of leisure, but their utopia relies on a vast array of genetically engineered animals who handle all of the mundane tasks of city maintenance, from garbage cleanup and water treatment to food preparation. Unbeknownst to their creators, however, these augmented animals have developed a bustling society of their own complete with armies, gangs, guilds, and other social strata. And then there’s Skotch the raccoon, an honest-to-goodness private investigator who’s a bit down on his luck. That is, until he lands the biggest case of his life when his former boss hires him to track down a mouse. Which seems simple enough, but his case soon becomes bigger, and deadlier, than Skotch could have possibly imagined. Before too long, everyone in the city’s gunning for him, and he has no idea why. Green City Wars’ greatest strength is that Adrian Tchaikovsky plays his premise, and his animal-ized takes on noir tropes (e.g., a world-weary detective who’s a raccoon, a stoat femme fatale, rat mob bosses), entirely straight. Sure, there were moments when I was very conscious of my suspended disbelief, but because Tchaikovsky is completely invested in his premise, I was, too. It also helped that cynical ol’ Skotch is a pretty likable protagonist. And because Tchaikovsky plays things straight, he can work in some incisive social commentary, like a case for universal basic income, without sounding preachy.

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