I hadn’t realized that Outlaw Planet, by M.R. Carey, was part of a series (the Pandominion books), but went ahead and requested it on the strength of Hachette’s promotional summary. Luckily for me, it’s set on a planet that’s unaware of the multiversal war raging around it, so I didn’t have any trouble jumping right into this third book and following what was happening; my occasional questions about how this world worked were answered as I continued reading. So it’s fair for Hachette to call it a standalone novel. Moreover, I really enjoyed the protagonist’s journey of discovery as she took her sentient gun on a vengeance quest, even though I didn’t always agree with her choices. I think a lot of readers will like Outlaw Planet as much as I did.
From Hachette: “This is the story of Bess … It’s the story of the gun she carried, whose name was Wakeful Slim. It’s the story of the dead man who carried that gun before her and left a piece of himself inside it. And it’s the tale of how she turned from teacher, to renegade, and ultimately to hero.”
Bess becomes notoriously known as Dog-Bitch Bess after a massacre in her frontier settlement leaves her with a passion for revenge. Rather than enlisting in the Echelon army of her slave-holding territory to fight the Parity army (less racist, although somewhat hypocritical), she digs up a Precursor gun, a rare high-tech item from ancient times that she’d buried as a dangerous secret, and she joins up with an irregular band of guerilla raiders who aren’t too particular about their targets or the rules of war.
“Dog-Bitch” isn’t purely pejorative, however, but also descriptive; Bess is a Golden Retriever type. The Wise People of this world are anthropomorphic varieties of mammals, from dog-people to wildcats, otters, bison, deer, goats, and more, to “lesser,” often enslaved “races” like squirrels and rats. Then there are also the Pugfaces, the nearly furless and muzzle-less despised outsiders who aren’t even recognized as part of any legal system.
Bess didn’t grow up as a killer, but she’s fairly ruthless all along. Early on, she abandons her parents and siblings without a word when she sees a job opportunity that lets her escape their financial troubles; later, she lies by omission to her romantic partner, Martha, about important things, to keep their relationship comfortable. But she doesn’t steal, and she keeps her word once given, and when her smart gun Wakeful Slim sadly tells her about ets amnesia, she gives it what comfort she can.
After the massacre, about a fifth of the way through the book, the story of Bess starts being interrupted occasionally by reports from a high-tech army engineer. Pursuing an enemy through a portal, his unit finds itself stranded on an unknown world, dotted with mysterious tower structures.
Back to Bess, on the run from a posse after the civil war ends. She gets caught up in saving a Pugface girl from some bullies, and when the Pugface convinces Bess and Slim that she can fix his amnesia if they can recover some stolen tools, she agrees to help.
Throughout this quest, Bess and her allies cover a lot of country and encounter various adventures and battles. Eventually, they find out more about the Precursors and how their experiments, artifacts, and heritage still affect the people of this world to this day, in some fairly horrific ways, and they try to alleviate those harms.
Bess has to make some hard choices and take some extreme risks, along with her allies, but the resolution of the story is extremely satisfying to me. Bess and Slim have complete stories, and there are interesting glimpses into other people’s characters and lives. The high-tech engineer’s reports eventually tie into the main narrative, and the Precursor artifacts and other mysteries turn out to have intriguing, convincing explanations.
I really enjoyed this book. For anyone who enjoys Westerns with a strong science-fiction element, or vice versa, with compelling characters and an intriguing plot, and a lot to say about memory and how someone is remembered, this will be great.
Outlaw Planet goes on sale Nov. 18, but you can preorder here. M.R. Carey is the author of The Girl with All the Gifts and the Rampart Trilogy, along with the Pandominion series and other books.
Content warnings: War; deaths by violence and fire; disease; zombies, sort of; amnesia; lying to partners.
Comps: Firefly TV series, for some spoilery reasons beyond the obvious Western theme; The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).
Disclaimer: I received a free eARC of this book for review from the publisher via NetGalley.
