Red Claw

A surprise of a book.
June 04, 2010

I wasn't too sure of Philip Palmer's "Red Claw" at first, but it won me over. Palmer has only written two scifi books, but if he can maintain this kind of quality, he could be a major force in scifi. The book combines many of pulp scifi's most familiar tropes, but in a modern, exciting way. Killer robots, alien dinosaur analogs, alien jungles, quicksand, science heroes, space troopers, implacable enemies...it's all there. Actually, it's missing one big trope - spaceships. The only spaceship mentioned is essentially "off-stage." But that doesn't detract from the book. I was a bit put off at the beginning due to the "jokey" nature of Palmer's writing. I'm not a fan of stuff like "Hitchhiker's Guide," and that's what this reminded me of at first. I gradually came to see that Palmer was not only writing with humor, he also has a solid grasp of science and science fiction. I wouldn't call it hard scifi, but Palmer provides reasonable explanations for technological wonders. He also provides plausible - and chilling - explanations for why his characters do what they do. There are also a number of sly references to other science fiction authors and books, which I found to be both amusing and a warm homage to the genre. I was struck most of all by how deft Palmer was at characterization. Even the cannon fodder were given enough attention that the losses in the book made me cringe. All in all, a surprisingly good book with serious themes, but done in a breezy, fun way.

Reviewer: Jeff B