**spoiler alert** We're coming to the end of the Macaque trilogy now, and our titular misanthropic hero monkey has saved the world from both nuclear a**spoiler alert** We're coming to the end of the Macaque trilogy now, and our titular misanthropic hero monkey has saved the world from both nuclear annihilation (Ack Ack Macaque) and assimilation by a hive mind from another dimension (Hive Monkey). You'd think it would be time for him to put his feet up, bite the end off a cigar and knock back a well deserved tot of rum (or seven). But life just isn't that simple for the escapee from a computer game and his crew. Damaged journalist Victoria is struggling to deal with letting go of her decaying hologram husband Paul, while teenage hacker K8, given over to the gestalt mind and then separated from them, has lost her own personality and is longing to return to the comfort of the collective.
Ack-Ack has gathered his own army of rescued monkeys, saving them from their gruesome fates on a myriad of worlds as his airship, the Sun Wukong, hops from dimension to dimension. He must face down not only dissent within his own ranks, but the threat of invasion from another timeline, while an asteroid, hurled from the surface of Mars, makes its deadly and seemingly unstoppable way towards the earth. The way these events are linked becomes apparent in a surprise twist about halfway through the novel, one that will have GLP fans gasping and celebrating in equal measure.
There's much to enjoy here, on a number of levels. If you just want to see monkeys blow up giant tanks or shoot shit, then yes, there's no shortage of that, and it's all tremendous fun. But if you also want a book that touches on loneliness, on the fear of death and the difficulty of letting go of the past, while at the same time blowing shit up all around you, then Macaque Attack comes highly recommended. The whole Macaque Trilogy is a lot smarter, and deeper, than a casual glance might suggest, and so is Ack Ack Macaque himself. He might be battered and war-weary, he might lists his interests as smoking, drinking and making things explode, but there's a warm heart and the beginnings of a conscience beneath that furry chest. The grumpy old monkey really does love his troupe, even if he doesn't like to show it.
I'm not ashamed to say I loved these books, and the more I read them the more I enjoy them. Re-reading rewards you with all kinds of clever cultural references and in-jokes you may have missed the first time around. The whole trilogy will, I hope become a future classic. If it doesn't, there's no justice and I may have to send the monkeys round to sort things out...
A solid but not earth-shattering conclusion to a fine debut trilogy. A little disappointed to find Coby (yay, Team Coby!) pushed to the fringes of theA solid but not earth-shattering conclusion to a fine debut trilogy. A little disappointed to find Coby (yay, Team Coby!) pushed to the fringes of the action for much of the book, but there's still a great deal to enjoy here. Recommended, but read the first two volumes first, as this one doesn't stand alone....more
Ack-Ack Macaque first burst into the public consciousness via the pages of Interzone, where the story of a virtual monkey becoming self-aware and runnAck-Ack Macaque first burst into the public consciousness via the pages of Interzone, where the story of a virtual monkey becoming self-aware and running wild in meatspace was voted the readers favourite of 2007. Since then, Powell has written cracking universe-hopping space-action-opera The Recollection, but confesses the monkey had always been lurking on his back, straining to be unleashed again.
In the novel, only the title character has crossed over, a Nazi-shooting Spitfire-flying cigar-chomping fast-talking primate battling German Zeppelins and Ninja storm-troopers in the skies over WWII battered southern England in 1944. Meanwhile, in 2059, a united England and France are poised at the brink of nuclear war with China, a serial killer is stealing people’s brains, city-state airships criss-cross the channel, and the heir to the Anglo-French throne has mysteriously vanished. Parachuted into this mix are Victoria Valois, former journalist, now half human, half she-doesn’t-know-what, teenage hacker K8, and the legendary Ack-Ack Macaque himself, who divides his time between doubting his own existence, and, in his own words, “blowing shit up.”
If this seems like too much plot to cram into 340 pages, I haven’t mentioned the sinister medical facility, the Mars Probe, the dead guy living in Victoria’s head…. Powell chucks everything but the kitchen sink into this one. And then the monkey rips out the kitchen sink, lobs that in as well, tosses a grenade into the whole shebang and lights a cigar off the smoking embers. With his toes. The plot fizzes and spits and screams along like an out-of control firework bouncing joyously across the stratosphere. It’s tremendous fun, from explosive start to equally explosive finish. Probably the best primate-starring alternative history novel you will read all year.
Solaris have already confirmed a sequel, “Hive Monkey”, for release in 2014, and have included the original short from Interzone as bonus material in the back of the book.
2013 will be the Year of the Monkey. Watch out!...more
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