River of Teeth

I started on this after reading Gailey’s “Do Hippos Count as Dragons”, the premise was simply too good to pass by. Even if I wasn’t such a sucker for Western steampunk(ish) stories, the idea of feral hippos roaming the Mississippi would have been alluring in its originality.

Unluckily, Gailey’s writing is not up to her ingenious premise. The whole thing reads like a slapdash novelisation of an unmade film script, possibly one for a 1970’s style adventure caper – you know, the kind that used to star James Coburn and hasn’t been made well anymore since Peckinpah passed –, with the operative word being “slapdash”. The writing is peripatetic and superficial, with narrative threads or insights emerging far less often than the eponymous aquatic pachyderms. Add some jarring anachronisms in a world that, for all I can see, is meant to be exactly the US 1890s except for the hippos, and things fall apart quickly. Which is a pity. I mean … “hippo riders of the Wild West” does have a ring to it.

River of Teeth is a dark and fun revenge caper/operation alternate history with hippo steeds and self-confident queer sexiness. If that doesn't make you want to read it immediately, I'm not sure what else would convince you. Check this one out.

I love heist stories, caper (sorry, "operation") stories, anything where we get the crew together for one very dangerous job. I also love alternate history, twisting the past into something a little bit different, a little more weird (or at least differently so). Unsurprisingly, I loved this book. The premise is weird and wonderful, everyone who wants to be sexy is very sexy, the revenge plot is established without weighing down the story... it hit all the right notes for me and I'll definitely check out the sequel. 

I don't think it goes quite as far as to have queerness as a default, but it gets most of the way there in very excellent form. Hero is great, their dynamic with Houndstooth is sexy and fun without distracting from the main plot. There's a lot of little things to appreciate and I don't want to spoil them, this just felt very good to read.

That the seed for this premise comes out of a real historical proposal is pretty great, but even if that weren't the case, this would still be a dark and fantastic story. 

It moves fast and has a lot of fun, but it's also a revenge story and it has some pretty bloody scenes. Not everyone is up for that, so please take care of yourselves. It somehow manages to be gruesome, edging up to explicit without quite getting there, all without having a dark tone. If you are up for that, go read this.

I've had this on my to read list probably since it came out, and after reading and loving Magic For Liars this week I though this would be a no brainer to read next. Unfortunately it was just a mess. Or maybe not quite a mess but.. something just less than a mess.

I think the basic premise was good, and it had a lot of good ideas, it just didn't translate to the page. I think my main issue is that there just wasn't enough world building. It's a neat short story but it really could have been set anywhere at any time and not even with hippos. You could have replaced the word "hippo" with "horse" or "cow" or "elephant" and probably had almost exactly the same story.

Add to this, I constantly found myself mixing up characters, I think because we didn't really get to know the characters very well. And when characters died I didn't really care and none of the other characters seemed to care either. There was some attempt at romance, but it didn't feel like any of the characters had any kind of chemisty, romantic or otherwise. I can probably count on one hand the number of conversations some characters had with each other. And just a picky thing for me, too many characters starting with the same letter of the alphabet. Hero, Houndstooth, Archie, Abigail.

I think also the problem was there nothing unexpected here. The plot was very much the plot of any heist novel/movie/tv show. A leads to B leads C. The End.

And you can't even blame any of that on it being being a novella, because plenty of other novellas have had amazing world building and depth.

I guess I am disappointed, because it just sounded like it should be SO good. But it was fairly underwhelming.

When I heard that River of Teeth was a western with hippos, I knew I had to read it. It's set in an alternate history where hippos were introduced to America as an alternate meat source. Apparently, this was an actual thing that the US government considered, and sensibly rejected.

However Sarah Gailey reimagines the Louisana swamps as home to these unpredictable beasts, and the people who wrangle them. The hippos replace both cows and horses in this "western" which isn't set in the west but it certainly has many hallmarks of the genre.

Winslow Houndstooth is rounding up a team to take on a job, to clear out the feral hippos from the area and send them on their way down the Mississippi. Houndstooth also has a spot of revenge to take care of too and it all fits nicely together. The feral hippos lurk in the shadow of a floating casino, waiting for cheats and other unlucky fellas to be thrown overboard. As one can imagine, the owner of the casino isn't exactly a nice chap.

It's fun, how could it not be? I did find it a bit unsubstantial though, like it didn't quite suit being a novella. There are quite a few characters and as soon as I felt I'd just got to know them all it was all over a bit too quickly. There's a sequel so I wonder if reading them back-to-back would help solve this.

The cast is diverse; there's a point where they need someone to collect some explosives but it's revealed no one is suitable because they are expecting a white man. I think that's the first point race is mentioned, which challenges how you imagine the characters. There is also a non-binary character, described using the singular they, whose appearance is never described.

She had me at alternative history novella about feral hippos in the Mississippi River. I pre-ordered.

I didn't read it the first day it came out because I wanted to wait until I could read it in one sitting.

I wasn't disappointed.

There are feral hippos in a section of the Mississippi. They are penned in by a dam to the north and a large gate to the south. The lake in between in controlled by a criminal who runs the gambling boats. Having large predators in the lake around his establishments is an important natural asset. The government wants the hippos out of the way so they hire a former hippo rancher with a grudge.

Winslow Houndstooth, a pansexual man from England who rides an opinionated black hippo named Ruby, puts together a crew for the job.

Hero Shakleby- a nonbinary black person who is a demolition and poisoning expert. They ride a hippo named Abigail.
Regina Archambault (Archie) - a fat French conwoman who rides an albino hippo named Rosa. Rosa likes to get her teeth brushed and eats pastries even though the vet said she needs to cut back.
Cal Hotchkiss - He is a white man who burned down Winslow's ranch. Winslow is planning to kill him but it helps to have a white man around to buy explosives. His hippo is named Betsy
Adelia Reyes - A very pregnant assassin with two hippos named Stasia and Zahra.

I loved the world that is created here. This reads like a wild west story with hippos instead of horses. Of course, the job doesn't go as well as planned. The story is violent as fits the lawlessness of the time and place.

My only complaint about this story is that I wanted more. (That and I'm said about Ruby eating a dog named Petunia. Bad Ruby! Note that I am not particularly sad about all the people who get eaten by hippos in this book because I like dogs better than I like most people.) This is a novella that has a fairly abrupt ending. I want to know what happens. When do we get more?