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A review by mafiabadgers
The Builders by Daniel Polansky
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.0
First read 03/2025
Growing up, I read oodles of books by Beatrix Potter and Brian Jacques, as well as the Uttley & Tempest Little Grey Rabbit series. I had a mercilessly abridged copy of The Wind in the Willows, thankfully with the E.H. Shepard illustrations. There were others, too. There are always plenty of children's books about animals that wear clothes. It is unsurprising, then, that the desire to read about small furry animals in waistcoats persisted into adulthood. Yes, the later Redwall books were bloody, but I'd love to see the genre turned to more traditionally adult ends. I want to read life-and-death political intrigue books about shrews. I want to read Cold War spycraft shenangians starring gerbils. But for many years, I was unable to find such a book.
Enter The Builders. I got very excited when I first heard about it, and I have to say it delivered. The Wild West-iness of it all went down a lot better when accompanied by a cowboy playlist I made for TTRPGs a few years ago. It's all dialled up to eleven, Stetsons and shootouts and cigars, and it would be achingly generic pulp action if it weren't for the wee beasties. Over a quarter of the book is spent getting the crew back together! And it's so desperate for you to think it's cool that it would undercut itself, if it weren't for the simple fact that they're animals. In the acknowledgments, Polansky describes it as "essentially a one-note joke that remains funny for me", which is a perfectly accurate description. That said, I'm usually more willing to tolerate misogyny if it's in historical(ish) fiction, but I do think it was unnecessary here. Still, the women of the Captain's crew were written as well as the men; it only crops up in passing bouts, usually relating to prostitutes.
Other than that, my only real critique is that I think Polansky could have done more in the narration to sell me on the animal-ness of the characters. Convey emotion through a twitch of the ears or tail, have them stroke their whiskers, brush their fur. At several points he used "hand" when "paw" would have been more evocative. The book is trying to be an animal fantasy, so I'm not inclined to cut it any slack on that front.
I wasn't expecting quite so many of the animals to go down in a hail of bullets, but Polansky is a grimdark fantasy author, so I can't say I was too surprised. It was suprisingly affecting, in the end. The book will never win any literary awards (the inconsistent third person limited/omniscient switching was particularly annoying), but if you want to read about spilled whiskey, bloody revenge and torn fur, it'll hit the spot.
Growing up, I read oodles of books by Beatrix Potter and Brian Jacques, as well as the Uttley & Tempest Little Grey Rabbit series. I had a mercilessly abridged copy of The Wind in the Willows, thankfully with the E.H. Shepard illustrations. There were others, too. There are always plenty of children's books about animals that wear clothes. It is unsurprising, then, that the desire to read about small furry animals in waistcoats persisted into adulthood. Yes, the later Redwall books were bloody, but I'd love to see the genre turned to more traditionally adult ends. I want to read life-and-death political intrigue books about shrews. I want to read Cold War spycraft shenangians starring gerbils. But for many years, I was unable to find such a book.
Enter The Builders. I got very excited when I first heard about it, and I have to say it delivered. The Wild West-iness of it all went down a lot better when accompanied by a cowboy playlist I made for TTRPGs a few years ago. It's all dialled up to eleven, Stetsons and shootouts and cigars, and it would be achingly generic pulp action if it weren't for the wee beasties. Over a quarter of the book is spent getting the crew back together! And it's so desperate for you to think it's cool that it would undercut itself, if it weren't for the simple fact that they're animals. In the acknowledgments, Polansky describes it as "essentially a one-note joke that remains funny for me", which is a perfectly accurate description. That said, I'm usually more willing to tolerate misogyny if it's in historical(ish) fiction, but I do think it was unnecessary here. Still, the women of the Captain's crew were written as well as the men; it only crops up in passing bouts, usually relating to prostitutes.
Other than that, my only real critique is that I think Polansky could have done more in the narration to sell me on the animal-ness of the characters. Convey emotion through a twitch of the ears or tail, have them stroke their whiskers, brush their fur. At several points he used "hand" when "paw" would have been more evocative. The book is trying to be an animal fantasy, so I'm not inclined to cut it any slack on that front.
I wasn't expecting quite so many of the animals to go down in a hail of bullets, but Polansky is a grimdark fantasy author, so I can't say I was too surprised. It was suprisingly affecting, in the end. The book will never win any literary awards (the inconsistent third person limited/omniscient switching was particularly annoying), but if you want to read about spilled whiskey, bloody revenge and torn fur, it'll hit the spot.