Iron Jaw and Hummingbird by Chris Roberson is good. Not great, somewhat better than average.
Mars is controlled by the Chinese, who call their civilization the Celestial Empire. But for teenagers Gamine and Huang, it is anything but heavenly. Gamine was taken off the street by an aristocrat, schooled as a fine young lady—then abandoned at her patron’s whim and forced to make her living as a grifter. Huang’s army career is cut short by a bandit ambush. When the two meet, Gamine —“Iron Jaw”—is the leader of a sham religious movement, and Huang, or “Hummingbird,” is the bandits’ chief tactician. They join forces to bring down the corrupt government that has determined their lives. Iron Jaw and Hummingbird offers a planet’s worth of adventure!
Roberson’s stories of Chinese Mars could be an engrossing story of alternative future. If you’re a fan of his other stories set here, then you probably want to pick it up, but there’s not enough Martian flavor to make this solidly science fiction. It doesn’t treat the relationships between the characters very deeply either. It’s not a surprise that Gamine and Huang become romantically entwined, and this is presented as a fait accomplait.
It’s difficult to decide what this story is actually about; it’s not two people falling in love, it’s not the Chinese flavor on Mars. It’s not huge battles of bandits / rebels against an empire. In fact, most of the story is oddly turned in the last few chapters, as the story winds to a close.
All of this sounds like it was a bad book, but it was not.. The story is interesting, there are some expected plot devices that did not fail to go through. The use of airships on Mars is interesting, and where Roberson skims over the science of the “terraforming” of Mars. It’s a good kid book. I’d recommend it for a younger teen who’s not so entranced by “magic.” It’d also be a good book to open a discussion with your kid about death, religion, revenge and revolution.
