I'll admit, I actually stopped paying as close attention to what was going on about halfway through. Unfortunately, as interesting as the world building is, the plot isn't that great. What exactly is the Undertow? How do people get which animals? What did the main character actually do to get her Sloth? How different are the animals from their wild brethren? Unfortunately, a lot of details are left unclear. And the world is just gritty and dark enough that it felt like a dark echo of what our world could be / have been. It's a really interesting concept something that I haven't quite seen anywhere else (The Golden Compass is vaguely similar, at least in the animal companions). On the down side, people know how you got your animal (your zoo) and discrimination is rampant. On the plus side, they come with free magical abilities (like the main character's ability to find lost things). *** (difficult, not that fun, but interesting) ( )īasically, if you kill someone (is that the only way?) you end up with a literal animal manifestation of your guilt. In the area of the city where the 'zoo' folks live with their familiars what matters is surviving and that transcends human fixation with skin color. Of interest is that Beukes does not specifically call this or that person white or black or asian, a bit of info, a description of some feature, some little tidbit clues you in. But toward the end chaotic violence that doesn't quite feel authentically grown out of the story erupts and I didn't really even speed read what was there, just kind of checked who died, who survived and called it a day. The novel is also well put together and solidly written.

The setting is Johannesburg and the premise is truly excellent: people who have murdered acquire an animal familiar and a magical ability (just one, and some are very small). The long answer would ask a question - how did a book this violent win the Arthur C. Hard to know what to say - the short comment would be too egregiously violent for me.

Zoo city book review