n an all-too-near future, global warming has devastated the human race, while the United States has dissolved into civil war. Canada steps in to fill the power void, selling out to multinational corporations and then jumping into an arms race with another surviving world power, China. The two nations are rushing to build and launch a starship ... but so far, all their efforts have ended in catastrophe.
As Hammered opens, this international rivalry means nothing to Jenny Casey, a retired Canadian Special Forces pilot whose years of service have earned her not only decorations but a cybernetic arm and a number of other life-saving body "enhancements." Now living quietly in Hartford, Conn., 50-year-old Jenny is coping with a number of unpleasant reminders of days gone by. The artificial components of her body are breaking down painfully. What's more, someone has released a batch of a combat drug known as the Hammer—the very drug she was given by CSF to enhance her combat effectiveness—in her neighborhood. The drugs are tainted, people are dying, and nobody can identify the dealer.
Before Jenny can find those responsible for the deaths, the doctor who originally installed her implants surfaces. Doctor Valens wants her to pilot the next starship prototype—wants her so badly, in fact, that he will stop at nothing to bring her on board. First he resorts to subtle blackmail, by hiring the man Jenny loves to work on the project. Then he sends a psychotic ronin named Barbara to Hartford to collect her—a mercenary who just happens to be her sister.
Gritty, fast-paced adventure
In military SF, giving one's heroine a dark past, supreme combat skills and a lot of attitude generally makes for a winning combination. With Jenny Casey, author Elizabeth Bear delivers a kick-butt fighter who could easily hold her own against Kristine Smith's Jani Killian or Elizabeth Moon's Heris Serrano. Jenny is deadly but likable, someone readers can both relate to and root for. As she and her appealing cast of sidekicks skate close to the edge of disaster, the suspense of Hammered rises credibly.
That said, this novel does not pay off on many of its promises. The true danger for Jenny in facing her past seems to be her history of substance abuse—not just her government-induced addiction to Hammer, but all the drugs she has used since leaving the Special Forces. When she agrees to work with Doctor Valens in exchange for a rebuild of her artificial body parts—a rebuild she can't refuse unless she wants to die—the government puts her back on the drugs. But readers don't get to see her struggle with this demon from her past ... the turmoil, if it is to come at all, has been saved for a sequel.
More importantly, Bear dangles a radical temptation before readers. In Barbara and Jenny she has created two women, both over 50 and with plenty of wisdom and life experience to show for it, both equipped with extremely lethal—but very different—combat training and equipment. At first they seem to be on a collision course. It is an intoxicating prospect, but Jenny's dangerous sister is deflected into a subplot ... and ultimately swallowed by it.
What Bear has done in Hammered is create a world that is all too plausible, one wracked by environmental devastation and political chaos. Through Jenny Casey's eyes, she conducts a tour of this society's darker corners, offering an unnerving peek into a future humankind would be wise to avoid.
