Adrian Tchaikovsky, Green City Wars. Tor Publishing Group. 2026. ISBN: 978-1-250-29033-5. $28.99.

I follow Adrian Tchaikovsky on Bluesky so I’d preordered Green City Wars months in advance. I’m certain I would have picked it up if I’d spotted it on the New Fiction table at Powell’s, though. The outstanding cover designed by Shreya Gupta and executed by Chris Koehler catches the eye immediately. Raccoon in a fedora moving in silhouette across a nighttime cityscape? Count me in.

Skotch, the raccoon in question, has augmented intelligence and physical skills. He received that treatment to make him one of the Little Helpers, the army of animals that do the grunt work of bussing tables, collecting trash, and maintaining the infrastructure of a near-future city Neuwie, the reconstituted Vienna, Austria. The Little Helpers are managed by Uzco and, as long as they remain in good standing they receive regular doses of Plangent. Going without means their intelligence swiftly disappears.

Not a good fit for the corporate life, Skotch has gone freelance as a private investigator. And with freelancing being what it is, he faces regular shortages of both buttons (currency) and Plangent. Those shortages give his former employer Uzco the leverage to convince our raccoon PI to find an augmented mouse.

In Neuwien, mice are at the bottom of the Little Helper social hierarchy and used as the baseline for Mausgelt, the number of buttons one must pay to wipe the slate clean after a death. A mouse is worth one Mausgelt, meaning that if you kill a mouse you can pay one button to have the offended party, whether family, clan, or corporation, set the matter aside. The mouse in question is special, of course, and multiple parties want to lay their paws on him. Skotch’s job is to manage those opposing forces while saving the mouse and his own pelt.

Tchaikovsky builds an intriguing world with sly references to Flowers for Algernon, dramas such as Downton Abbey and Upstairs/Downstairs, and science fiction classics from the 1970s that I don’t want to spoil for you. His commentary on the plight of the serving class through the lens of animals as Little Helpers cuts neatly into contemporary society and critiques the assumptions and goals of technology leaders.

And did I mention Skotch’s investigations begin as red and gray squirrels are about to renew large-scale hostilities?

I loved Green City Wars and recommend it without reservation.

Martha Wells, Platform Decay. Tor. 2026 ISBN: 978-1-250-82700-5. $24.99.

If you’re a science fiction fan you’ve probably watched or at least seen advertisements for the Murderbot television series from Apple TV. The show is based on a book series by Martha Wells and I’m happy to say that Tor just released the eighth installment Platform Decay. tl;dr: Buy and read the entire series.

The main character of the Murderbot series is a SecUnit (security unit), a former human with cybernetic enhancements used for mission and personal security operations. The SecUnit’s specs are between that of a worker unit and a combat unit, which allows for a variety of matchups against unmodified humans, other SecUnits, more powerful foes, and combinations of adversaries varying in number and type. Importantly, SecUnit bypassed their control module and has free will, which they exercise to aid and protect a group of influential humans.

Murderbot’s independence and echoes of their human existence has allowed Wells to develop the character in interesting ways. As Murderbot grows as an individual, they experience meaningful (and stressful) human interaction, including with children, as part of the exfiltration operations central to the plot of Platform Decay. Murderbot also acts as a mentor to another SecUnit with a hacked control module, Three, so the reader gets to see how Murderbot relates to their own progress as an individual.

Like most of the other books in the Murderbot series, Platform Decay is of novella length and a fairly quick read. While you can read it by itself, I highly recommend reading the previous books in the series so you are familiar with the characters and understand the context for the action in this book. You can buy the first six installments of the series as ebooks from most major retailers.

I loved Platform Decay and can’t wait for the next Murderbot book. Highly recommended!

Annalee Newitz, Automatic Noodle. Tordotcom. 2025. ISBN: 978-1250357465. $24.99

The year is 2064 and California has won its independence from the United States after a bloody war of secession. Technology has advanced to the point where high-level robots have been classified as “human equivalent embodied intelligence”, or HEEIs. The HEEIs have been granted citizenship, though without several important rights afforded their biological counterparts.

In Automatic Noodle, author Annalee Newitz explores how a postwar society rebuilds in the face of shared trauma, prejudice, and lingering threats from the conflict. The central group of four HEEIs, soon joined by a human friend, wake up after an extended sleep cycle to find the restaurant they staffed has been abandoned and is threatened by water from an atmospheric river drenching northern California. They power up and join forces to turn the defunct burger joint, which reminds me of the tax-dodging candy shops on London’s Oxford Street, into a viable business.

Newitz uses the mid-future scenario to explore social issues in the same way the original Star Trek series used alien species as proxies for class, ethnicity, and race in the 1960s. Our heroes take risks, bend the occasional rule (and break the occasional law) to do what they need to do to ensure they retain their freedom. As artificial entities, several of the crew were forced to sign extortionate contracts to maintain their independence so the stakes are high for those HEEIs and those who care about them.

Automatic Noodle doesn’t shy away from difficult circumstances and the effects of war and prejudice on specific classes of sentient beings, but it was a joy to read. As Martha Wells, author of the Murderbot Diaries, blurbs on the front cover: “A story I didn’t know I needed right now. So much fun!” I agree and hope you find the time to fit Automatic Noodle into your busy reading schedule.