Book 45, 2024
Marks of our Brothers by Jane Lindskold
The copy of Marks of our Brothers" that I have has a bunch of different kind of creature guys on it and it is 100% an accurate representation of the creature guys in the book. It's mostly about becoming friends with an alien dog and establishing communication with a species that has no verbal or written language and exploring some real ALIEN alienness, but it also starts out being some kind of sci-fi corporate espionage murder thriller. The one blends into the other in a way that never feels like a whiplash pivot. The protagonist just starts out it one genre and ends up in another, the genre shift reflecting her personal change and growth.
God it's rad to find genre fiction that's just out there, doing its own thing without feeling it has to rely on some kind of genre template. It doesn't even feel like an intentional reaction to a certain kind of science fiction, she said, staring with gentle exasperation at grimdark and hopepunk and everything else that seems to need to build itself a box before it can work outside an established box. It just feels like Lindskold wanted to write a middle aged woman with rough edges and a rough background who is ruthlessly fighting to keep her independence and acknowledge her debts but then also maybe she could make friends with a telepathic alien dog.