Outlaw Planet

Looking at the PR for Mike Carey’s latest SF novel, you could be mistaken for thinking that it is a space Western in the style of Stark Holborn. And to some extent it is, but only to the extent that Iain Banks’ Inversions is a fantasy novel.

So no, Outlaw Planet is a Pandominium novel. It is set some time after the revolution engendered by Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills and her friends, and there is a back story which explains how the world of the book got to be the way it is. The front story, however, is of a world with 19th century technology that is fighting a version of the US Civil War, except with Pandominium people. Most people are treated fairly equally, and the main character is of Labrador extraction. But there are some species that are frequently enslaved. And then there are the hairless apes, known as ‘pugfaces’ who claim to be the original inhabitants of the planet.

Our main character, Dog-Bitch Bess, was once the youngest child of a well-to-do Northern family. Guessing how bad her father was with money, and how little would be left for her once her elder siblings had wasted their share, young Elizabeth took herself off South in search of a job as a schoolmistress. She did OK too, until the war came, and Bess was left with nothing but a burning desire for revenge.

She achieves this with the help of her pistol, Sam. Whereas Banks had a knife missile or two hanging around in the mediaeval world of Inversions, Carey has a Pandominium AI pistol that is way beyond anything that Bess’s people can produce in terms of military technology.

After the War there is a general amnesty for regular soldiers from the South, but Bess served with an irregular unit and the legend that has grown up around her has ensured that she’s a wanted woman. She and Sam have to go on the run. And that leads them to investigate the giant white towers that dot the landscape, and the mysterious Mindless Plague that occasionally afflicts townships.

Carey is having a lot of fun with this, and also having a good go at the idiocy of Fascists. You will understand that a lot better when you have read the book. I can’t say a huge amount more without getting deep into spoiler territory. Just read it, OK. It is very clever.

Title: Outlaw Planet
By: M R Carey
Publisher: Orbit
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
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