Item 202

Like most SF/Western hybrids, Garth Nix attempts to mash together a variety of tropes and cliches from both genres in clever and amusing ways. For this reader, the results are mixed. The main characters are Uncia and Onca, a Sheriff and Deputy maintaining order in a small mining town on a planet outside the jurisdiction of the galaxy-dominating Federation. They are part-cybernetic beings known as “warborgs” who fought for the Hegemony against the Federation during a devastating war that the Hegemony lost. Now all warborgs are illegal under Federation law. Atrox, a sadistic warborg repurposed by the Federation to hunt down its own kind (and any humans unwilling to fall in line) has arrived to destroy Uncia and Onca and bring the planet under Federation heel.

Nix offers up a very detailed sandbox to play in, and that ends up being a double-edged sword. As fun as the setting and backstory can be, for the first two-thirds of the novelette the characters can hardly take a step or get off a line of dialogue without the author digressing into several paragraphs of exposition. The story is nearly half-finished before the main conflict is even established. This has the unfortunate effect of making the promised “showdown” feel somewhat hasty in its execution. Uncia and Onca are nicely delineated characters, though, and their relationship allows for a satisfyingly tender conclusion.