Bear Head

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard, Nathan Osgood, William Hope

Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

In a sequel to the much-praised Dogs of War, Honey the genetically engineered bear takes a ride in Jimmy the Martian's head and starts a revolution on the Red Planet.

Mars. The red planet. A new frontier for humanity: a civilisation where humans can live in peace, lord and master of all they survey.

But this isn't Space City from those old science-fiction books. It's more like Hell City, built into and from a huge crater. There's a big silk canopy over it, feeding out atmosphere as we generate it, little by little, because we can't breathe the air here.

I guess it's a perfect place to live, if you want to live on Mars. At some point I must have wanted to live on Mars, because here I am. The money was supposed to be good, and how else was a working Joe like me going to get off-planet exactly? But I remember the videos they showed us - guys, not even in suits, watching robots and bees and Bioforms doing all the work - and they didn't quite get it right.

©2021 Adrian Tchaikovsky (P)2021 W F Howes

Doesn't live up to the original

Narration was good, despite some minor editing mistakes.

Not Tchaikovsky's best writing. Although the portrayal of the demagogue as political parasite is interesting, the novel fails to engage me completely; it simply lacks the emotional weight of Rex's story. Decent world building of Mars and its inhabitants, and overall not a bad sci fi work. While it kept me entertained and I don't regret the purchase, this book is mostly just that: almost idle entertainment. Perhaps expecting it to live up to dogs of war isn't entirely fair, but I was hoping for more.