Hive Monkey, by Gareth Powell

Ack-Ack Macaque made his debut in the eponymous novel from last year, and comes back strong in Gareth Powell's sequel, Hive Monkey. The cigar-smoking, hard-drinking, Spitfire-flying, enhanced monkey helped to save the world from nuclear Armageddon in the first novel. In Hive Monkey, he's called on to save the world again, this time from an invasion from a parallel universe.

This is a sequel, and readers will want to read these in order. But I love the way Powell adds a few key characters and creates an unexpectedly completely new story. One of the characters is a sci-fi writer who writes about parallel worlds. In the world of Ack-Ack, England and France united as one kingdom after WW2, and fossil fuels are not used extensively. But in the character's fictional alternative world, "the UK and France had never merged, and England now stood on the edge of a federal Europe; a world of financial chaos and Middle Eastern oil wars, in which Westminster's loyalties leaned closer to Washington than Paris. Stupid." I got a kick out of that.

For the uninitiated, the following exchange gives a good picture of Ack-Ack. He and Marie have just blown their way into an enemy stronghold. "He grinned at her, scooped up a smoldering piece of wood, and lit his cigar. 'There's something you need to know about me, lady--'. 'That you're dangerously irresponsible with explosives?' He frowned, pulled out his cigar, and exhaled smoke. 'Uh, yeah,' he said. 'That's near enough.'"

One comment on the story, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, just an observation. In Hive Monkey, Ack-Ack is recruited to join the Gestalt, a sort of hive mind. Star Trek fans will be reminded of the Borg Queen's appeal to Data. I won't go into detail, but there were many similarities in the story lines.

All on all, Hive Monkey is a blast to read (literally--there are lots of explosions!). Powell writes with creativity and vision, and hopefully will take Ack-Ack on more adventures!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!