Customer Reviews

Forests of the Night

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I've loved this book since the first time I read it. Swann has a dazzling sense of timing and a dizzying ability to make you see his universe, even without benefit of the gorgeous Jim Burns cover. He's infinitely inventive, and his women characters are distinctive and heroic. But you're really going to love Nohar. What a pussy-cat! (Just don't get on his wrong side.)

Forests of the Night is the first of the four 'Moreau' books. Its hero is Noha Rajastan, a gene-modified Bengal tiger private investigator (mostly because he's the son of a famously radical immigrant, who engineered a mutiny in the Indian Army Special Forces unit made up mostly of other modified tigers and came to the US seeking political asylum; the son isn't particularly fond of the father, but because of who they are, neither are particularly employable, and PI is about all the work Noha can get) who finds a Great and Terrible Secret. Actually, he finds several Great and Terrible Secrets over the course of the four books. Officialdom doesn't pay much attention to him, as he's the son of a famous terrorist and has, umm, interesting associates. This is a significant problem, as the Bad Guys _do_ pay attention to him, because they know that what he's saying is true... and isn't half what is really going on.

There are a number of other gene-modified characters, including various other large cats (Noha's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend is jaguar), 'franks' (heavily modified humans), rabbits, rats, and bears, all of whom are at best third- or fourth-class citizens of a decaying America. (Most humans really, really don't like franks; Noha ranks above franks, and he doesn't rank at all highly; among Noha's problems is that he willingly associates with franks...) Forests of the Night is set in Northern Ohio in the middle of the 21st century, and it appears that Northern Ohio has gone downhill quite a distance since the 20th Century glory days when the Cuyahoga burned and Lake Erie was a dead cesspool. It also appears that S. Andrew Swann did a lot of research into both basic biology (his gene-modified characters are modified in ways that actually make sense and which might actually work, and have actual real-world limitations, such as the feline characters recurring problems with long-distance daylight vision) and old-school hard-boiled private detective fiction (anyone who's read any Raymond Chandler will get the basic feel of the storyline immediately). The three Great And Terrible Secrets Noha uncovers in the course of the four books really are either great, terrible, or both, and Swann doesn't telegraph them. He _does_ leave clues which point in the correct direction, if you pay attention. The book does not suffer from Idiot Detective Syndrome, unlike many other detective stories; Noha is fairly quick on the uptake, and doesn't do silly things just to advance the plot. Nor do the Bad Guys do silly things just to advance the plot, there's a reason for everything they do, though that reason may not be obvious at first. And even when Noha (and the reader) figures out what's _really_ happening, it's not at all clear what Noha and friends are going to do about it. Noha's not a superman. He's not even a super cat. And his father was the one with the commando training, not him, though Noha does have dear Dad's old very large caliber pistol. (Bengal tigers typically weigh about 400-500 pounds. Think about what something that size would consider to be a big pistol. That pistol becomes a very important plot point, though not necessarily for the reasons the reader might think at first.)

I won't go into the full nature of the Great and Terrible Secret, other than to mention that there's a _reason_ why certain levo-based 'food' substances are suddenly being produced, and that it's tied to the collapse of space-based industry.

As Forests of the Night is the first of four books, things are _not_ wrapped up neatly at the end.

The four Moreau books are the backstory to the three 'Hostile Takeover' books. Certain loose ends left over from the Moreau books are tied up with Hostile Takeover. In particular, it's made clear that the main Great and Terrible Secret was even greater and more terrible than was previously shown.

Swann used Northern Ohio as the setting for the two 'Portal' books, as well.