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A review by jhbandcats
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I've read only three so far, but I think Sarah Gailey's books are in a class all their own. Rollicking and funny
speculative fiction, they're *really*
entertaining. The first one I read, Upright Women Wanted, was about traveling Librarians (capitalized) running an underground railroad of sorts in the Wild West. This time, Gailey's tale is based on a real life What If - what if, in 1910, hippos really had been imported to be bred for meat in the swamps of the Mississippi River? (Yes, this almost really happened.)
Hippopotamuses might look fairly docile and sluggish but they're really fast and they can be really vicious. It's one thing if a hopper (like a cowboy but ... not) has hand fed a baby hippo so it's a devoted domesticated beast, but what about the ones that get away and breed, and breed, and breed till their offspring are feral?
This tightly-packed novella gives us a handful of rascally scoundrels who come together to gradually remove the ferals from the huge lake where their population has exploded. The man with the plan, though, thinks he can make a fast buck by evacuating the ferals quickly - but as with most plans, things don't go the way he'd hoped. He's gathered the fastest gun in the West, a demolitions expert, an assassin, and a fast-talking thief up against the villain who owns the lake and who wants the feral hippos right where they are.
It's a fabulous story and I'm about to embark on the second half in the sequel, Taste of Marrow.
speculative fiction, they're *really*
entertaining. The first one I read, Upright Women Wanted, was about traveling Librarians (capitalized) running an underground railroad of sorts in the Wild West. This time, Gailey's tale is based on a real life What If - what if, in 1910, hippos really had been imported to be bred for meat in the swamps of the Mississippi River? (Yes, this almost really happened.)
Hippopotamuses might look fairly docile and sluggish but they're really fast and they can be really vicious. It's one thing if a hopper (like a cowboy but ... not) has hand fed a baby hippo so it's a devoted domesticated beast, but what about the ones that get away and breed, and breed, and breed till their offspring are feral?
This tightly-packed novella gives us a handful of rascally scoundrels who come together to gradually remove the ferals from the huge lake where their population has exploded. The man with the plan, though, thinks he can make a fast buck by evacuating the ferals quickly - but as with most plans, things don't go the way he'd hoped. He's gathered the fastest gun in the West, a demolitions expert, an assassin, and a fast-talking thief up against the villain who owns the lake and who wants the feral hippos right where they are.
It's a fabulous story and I'm about to embark on the second half in the sequel, Taste of Marrow.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Violence, and Animal death