THE MALFUNCTION

In Wax’s SF debut, an Indigenous American hunter pursues an intelligence-boosted pleasure android that’s gone on the run.

Lance is an LUV U-69 Amour Line companion, a make of robot imbued with physical beauty and sexual prowess designed to bring sensual pleasure to their wealthy owners. While satisfied by Lance’s attributes in this area, his owner would like him to offer more in the way of cerebral companionship. She therefore insists that the people at the Droidware company boost his intellect—an upgrade that they accidentally perform twice. After being raised to a greater sense of awareness, Lance breaks into the Droidware facility and attempts a further boost. Interrupted, he goes on the run. Brought in to retrieve him is Charlie Bear Claw, last of the pureblood Chompquaw and a morally compromised special agent of the AWOL Weapons Retention special military branch. After a debacle occurs while trying to apprehend Lance in Utah, Charlie is dismissed…but he continues his pursuit as a matter of personal vengeance, tracking his quarry to Iceland. There, hunter and quarry both come into conflict with Björn Thorson, the planet-despoiling, egotistical billionaire ex-husband of Lance’s owner. Wax writes first from Lance’s point of view and then from Charlie’s; the alternations come more rapidly as the novel progresses, imparting a real sense of pace to the action. Both protagonists emerge as complex and compelling. Lance’s owner exhibits traits beyond the stereotype of the beautiful but aging “man-huntress”; Brita, the eco-warrior who aids Lance in Iceland, proves to be an even stronger, more inspirational supporting character. Wax’s prose is mostly straightforward—the dialogue is workmanlike, but the author has a knack for concise imagery that lends the text voice, as in Charlie’s encounter with a hibernating bear: “I spread my fingers in the thick fur over her ribs, feeling for her heart. It beat a lethargic cadence under my palm, barely three or four times in a minute. She was far away in grizzly la-la land.” The narrative unfolds quickly and in unexpected directions. One quibble: The story is not especially self-contained, as it sets up book two of a trilogy.

A fast-paced adventure with philosophical leanings and plenty of twists.