Uptown Oracle Reads… Bear Head

Bear Head by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Head of Zeus

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Mars. The red planet. A new frontier for humanity, a civilization where humans can live in peace, lord and master of all they survey.

But this isn’t Space City from those old science-fiction books. We live in Hell City, built into and from a huge subcontinent-sized crater. There’s a big silk canopy over it, feeding out atmosphere as we generate it, little by little, until we can breathe the air.

It’s a perfect place to live, if you actually want to live on Mars. I guess at some point I had actually wanted to live on Mars, because here I am. The money was supposed to be good, and how else was a working Joe like me supposed to get off-planet exactly? But I remember the videos they showed us – guys, not even in suits, watching robots and bees and Bioforms doing all the work – and they didn’t quite get it right…

Bear Head is a book I went in with not much info and about a quarter of the way in I wanted to know everything about this sci-fi Earth and Mars. Our main characters are mostly on Mars and within a completed bio-engineered human body which can half-live on an area of Mars due to “upgrades”.

First up, I’ve heard Tchaikovsky talk about science fiction, and how it’s important to stay somewhat in the realm of possibity by using real-life science. So everything I’m reading I’m genuinely second-guessing whether or not this is something that could be done, and the biggest thing about his writing is question whether it should be done.

Human experimentation is illegal on Earth, although every construction worker has been bio-engineered to effectively evolve them into something that could live on Mars. At the same time on both Earth and Mars, animals like dogs, bears, cats and more are bio-engineered to be able to communicate and act more like humans than ever before. True to life, the humans and animals can’t quite agree one what’s right or wrong for these actions, and these are often argued about in politics.

Politics brings us to Thompson, a Trump-like politcian back on Earth who we get to see through the eyes of his secretary Miss Springer. Carole has effectively been “collared” to be completely loyal to Thompson, similar to how the bio-forms are forced into compliance to ensure “safety” for humans. Carole’s situation reads like a frog in a slowly boiling pan as she doesn’t jump out at the first red flag, but it’s because she actually cannot due to technology.

Jimmy, our other POV is similar in that he’s consented to go work on Mars and being altered to meet working conditions there. However, the consent given was extended and he’s been upgraded vastly more than he can comprehend to the point where he’s arguably not human anymore. Then when Honey is within his head, which is a violation itself, he lacks even more control when she can take over his body.

Then finally we have Honey, who is a Bioform activist from Earth who’s been fighting for freedom for Bioforms like herself. She wants her and other Bioforms to have rights, the right to have an opinion, the right to make choices rather than being forced to comply as a master and servant relationship that some humans want. Then when she is uploaded into Jimmy’s head, she loses freedom yet again whilst still fighting for it.

These characters are all vastly different, but I loved how you can see parallels and differences all at once. Jimmy and Honey don’t seem to even like each other but are co-existing within the same headspace for the book. Their conflicts and different ideals show that neither is better than the other, but also that despite both not being “human” in a typical sense they still act and feel human through their actions. Honey and Jimmy are definitely more attention grabbing POVs, and I did find Caroles to be slower but very informative on how people on Earth think of Bioforms and being human.

I really enjoyed Bear Head and what it made me think about. The concept was brilliant, and as usual Tchaikovsky writes it so well that it becomes easier to understand the bioforms, survival in space, head space etc and other more technical subjects discussed. But I did also find it to be slower than expected, especially when focused on Thompson.

Positives of Bear Head

• Topics and themes around human experimentation, bio-forms and whether giving animals human attributes allows them to have human-like rights.
• Brilliant concept of Bees, bio-forms and space colonization.

Negatives of Bear Head

• Slower pace for some chapters

I received Bear Head by Adrian Tchaikovsky from the publisher. This is an unbiased and honest review

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