DENVER MOON

A Mars-born detective fights against time to save her grandfather and her home planet in this installment of an SF series.

Martian Denver Moon knows that working with diabolical alien bugs is a necessary evil. Shape-shifting bug doctor Doctor Werner has tried controlling human minds for enslavement in the past, but he’s also leading the terraforming project on Mars. Denver, however, is surprised to learn that Werner has fled to Earth and even more surprised when bugs attack her and her grandfather, Ojiisan. With Ojiisan seriously injured, Denver believes her grandfather's only hope lies in bug doctor Werner. She makes tracks for Earth with a couple of friends and her reliable AI, Smith, who lives in her gun and speaks in her head. The bug doctor could be up to all sorts of no good at his underwater lab in Japan, but Ojiisan doesn’t have much time, forcing Denver to trust a few untrustworthy individuals. Mars is in trouble, too, as the bugs seem dead set on exterminating the red planet’s human inhabitants. Although Denver does little investigating, Hammond and Viola (The Saint of Mars, 2019, etc.) load this novel with action from the opening scene. It’s invigorating throughout, as Denver and her ragtag crew get into tussles on Mars, Earth, and other spots in the galaxy. Returning characters likewise evolve; Denver finally gets new eyes to replace her failing monochromatic ones, and Smith, outfitted with Ojiisan’s memories and personality, has a very human response when Ojiisan’s life is on the line. Some in this delightful cast face monumental changes before this installment ends. Fans of the series geared up for the authors’ razor-sharp writing won’t be disappointed; this sensational story’s highlight is Denver’s seeing colors for the first time, a “dizzying kaleidoscope” of a variety of pigments, including the joy of watching a vicious bug pop “like a neon green pimple.”

Radiant prose and characters propel this exhilarating, fully charged sequel.