Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Published by Tor Books on June 23, 2026

Talking animals are normally the stuff of fantasy or fables, often pitched to children, with such notable exceptions as Animal Farm and Watership Down. Adrian Tchaikovsky found a way for science fiction noir to tell a talking animal story.

The animals in Green City Wars are genetically engineered. Bioengineered modifications include voice boxes to enable speech and fingers to enable work. A drug called Plangent boosts their intelligence, but it needs to be replenished now and then to keep the animals from reverting to their normal state. Animals work in exchange for Plangent and for buttons used as currency.

Normal instincts have been overridden by programming that replaces the desire to eat members of other species with a moral code that includes service to humanity. Humans think of servant animals as Little Helpers but the animals stay out of sight because humans find it disturbing to see them. A rat might be a Little Helper but nobody wants to see one working as a busboy.

Given sufficient Plangent, most animals are at least as bright as a dull human but an important mouse in the story is a true genius. Most animals speak rudimentary languages that have been created to suit them, although birds often speak several languages, birds being good at making and imitating sounds. Some animals worship a human deity named Jeff.

Tchaikovsky devoted an impressive amount of world building to the creation of Green City Wars. The world is a future Earth. After people came to their senses about the climate crisis, they remodeled the world to make it green. Cities are now integrated into forests and powered by solar energy. Towers that house homes and businesses are covered in bark and vines. And hidden away, animals do all the hard work, leaving humans to pursue their leisure activities.

The animals live in the roots beneath the cities or underground, briefly popping into human space to clean the streets at night or clear restaurant tables after diners finish their meals. Underground animals process waste, handle the sewage system, and keep the electrical grid working.

Rule One, understood by every animal, is Don’t Bother the Humans. Don’t even be noticed by them. Stay in your place, do your job, and you’ll both earn Plangent and be fed for your natural lifetime, which is rather brief in the case of mice and rats.

Unbeknownst to humans, who can skate by without working if they choose, the animals that replaced them as laborers have developed their own economy, complete with the equivalent of labor unions and mob bosses. Red squirrels are at war with gray squirrels, but it’s a hidden war to accommodate Rule One. Animals operate the farms and divert produce to their own markets when it doesn’t meet human standards. They sell table scraps. Smart animals have learned how to hack their internal software so they can enjoy coffee.

The world Tchaikovsky built is so entertaining that it doesn’t require much of a story, but the noir plot does not disappoint. The protagonist is a raccoon named Scotch. His genetic engineering might add extra years to his lifespan, but he doubts that he will live to be a wise old raccoon, given the messes he’s made. He got tired of the corporate life Uzco offered him as a trash gatherer and wiring repairer (“dexterous little hands” help him with the latter job) — a life that included ready access to Plangent — so he became a freelancer, a combination of private detective and fixer. He’s always hustling to avoid running out of Plangent and returning to beast status. But like any good detective/fixer, he’s adept at making connections and doing favors that he can later ask to be repaid.

Scotch’s supply of Plangent is running low when Benson, a large turtle who manages Uzco, offers him a return to work, complete with a promised supply of Plangent. The task will require him to work undercover. He is to find and bring to Benson a mouse named Dr. Meece. Benson doesn’t tell Skotch why he wants the mouse and, at least initially, Skotch doesn’t really care. The remuneration seems quite generous for a task that seems quite simple. Benson gives Scotch a sample of the mouse’s scent and off he goes.

The story places Scotch in conflict with other factions that also want Meece for reasons that Scotch learns only late in the story. It soon becomes apparent to Scotch that Meece is a super-genius who has invented something that will change the lives of animals forever — whether for better or worse, Scotch doesn’t know. He only knows that some animal factions want him dead and others want his dream to be realized. The factions include corporatists, anarchists, guilds, and religious sects.

Two assassins who want to terminate Meese are a stoatweasel named Szerky and a cat named Tybelle. The cat is actually a human’s pet and thus enjoys a protected status — or at least it wants to leave that impression. Scotch battles them both (he’s bigger than the cat but not nearly as fast) and finds himself warring at various times with both the gray and red squirrels. A few animals are on his side, particularly a pigeon named Uwe who also has a protected status as an informant to a human master. A possum named Maria might or might not be on his side.

Tchaikovsky gives his animal characters personalities that are consistent with their species. Scotch the raccoon has a reputation as a bandit but is well served by his cleverness. The pigeon is annoyingly loud and boisterous. A frog works in water reclamation, moles work underground, and so forth.

In an indirect way, much like Animal Farm, Green City Wars uses animals to indict an oppressive economic system — in this case, an allegorical indictment of unfettered capitalism. To explain why that’s true would require revealing Meese’s secret, but it is enough to know that Tchaikovsky put careful thought into the economic ramifications of a system based on the fear of losing Plangent if animals stop serving the needs of their bosses.

The economic allegory gives the story some weight, but it is at bottom an amusing story of talking animals. Tchaikovsky is amazingly prolific — he’s the modern version of Isaac Asimov in that regard — but he always finds a way to give a fresh spin to conventional ideas. Readers won’t need to be science fiction fans to enjoy Green City Wars — a love of animals, lively plots, or both will be enough.

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Twice in a Blue Moon by Jess Lourey

Published by Amazon Original Stories on June 30, 2026

Originally published in 2014 as The Catalain Book of Secrets, Jess Lourey’s gothic thriller was revised and republished as The Blackthorn Women in 2026. The novel imagines several generations of witches who wield magic in the form of potions and curses and the like. “Twice in a Blue Moon” is a short story in the Blackthorn Women series. I’m not generally a fan of witches (or of stories about them) and I haven’t read The Blackthorn Women, but I enjoyed Lourey's short story.

The story touches upon issues that are primarily of concern to women, including mastectomies and being devalued by society because of gender. It also addresses issues that affect people of any gender, including low self-esteem, unfaithful spouses, and jealousy.

Helena Blackthorne makes homemade candy, at least some of which comes with a dose of witchcraft. Her twin sister Xenia makes and tailors clothing. They operate Seven Daughters Candy and Clothes from a storefront in Faith Falls, Minnesota. They remodeled the store with the help of Audish Buckley. Helena had a crush on Audish until he seemed to take up with her mother, Velda.

To buy the store, Xenia and another sister, Ursula, put up their Queen Anne as collateral. The city has decided to acquire the house through eminent domain to build a park and Helena expects to lose the store once their collateral is gone. The eminent domain scheme was orchestrated by Dagmar Baum as revenge for her husband’s sexual dalliance with Ursula.

Helena has developed a “puckered, poisonous scaling that circled the left areola like a storm cloud,” letting her know that she has breast cancer. A woman named Claudette consults with Ursula about skin problems of her own. When she touches someone, tattoos develop on her skin that signal the deepest fears of the person who touched her.

Will witchcraft overcome Dagmar’s scheme? Or Claudette’s tattoos? Perhaps. Or perhaps exquisite chocolate will be enough to do the job. In any event, the story offers life lessons that may be even more valuable than witchcraft. Sharing your problems is a step toward curing them. A boob funeral is a fitting response to a mastectomy. Scarring might be reimagined as “delicate pink leaves” that create a garden of the flesh. A life spent in anger is a wasted life. It’s never too late to decide what you want from life and go for it. You need to set your troubles aside as a prelude to causing real trouble in the world — the kind of trouble that sparks joy.

The story is clever, amusing, and sweet without becoming mawkish. Fans of witches will undoubtedly enjoy it, but the story holds value even for readers who usually shy away from tales of witchcraft.

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Winter Breakage by David Levithan

Published by Amazon Original Stories on June 23, 2026

“Winter Breakage” is one of six entries in the “Edge of Everything” series of Amazon Original Stories that focus on coming-of-age themes. Teenage insecurity seems to be a common theme in these stories. When Eric tells his friend Noah “I’m scared that nobody wants me here,” he’s echoing Isabel in “Safe Harbor” and Julia in “Julia at the Drive-In.”

The story takes place in early 1991, during the fifth week of Eric’s winter break. He is in his first year of college and has been invited to join four friends from his dorm who are getting together in New York City. They neglected to make a plan so they look in shop windows, consider visiting bookstores, and finally see a Woody Allen movie before heading to Chinatown.

Eric complains about the start of his freshman year: “I don’t feel like I chose my friends; it’s more like whoever made the dorm assignments chose my friends.” Maybe Eric doesn’t bother to attend classes or hang out at the student union, the typical ways in which students meet other students outside of their dorm.

Eric has a mildly obsessive interest in his friend Noah, the only other male who will be joining the outing. “It’s just that somewhere in my head, I’m aware that I’m lonely, and something in my brain is constantly telling me that he might be a person who’d make me feel less lonely.” Eric is a bit needy.

Eric has called Noah four times during the break but Noah hasn’t called him back. He left answering machine messages three times and hung up before the machine could answer the fourth call. He knew Noah was going to Florida for part of the break but still takes it personally that Noah didn’t return his calls after he returned.

When they meet in the city, Eric is snippy. Eric and Noah eventually speak to each other as if they are therapists and work out their lack of communication. It turns out (spoiler alert) they are equally insecure. End of story.

The three female characters serve no purpose at all. David Levithan managed to make New York City dull, but he did the same with Eric and Noah. Why Eric’s desire to open his heart to a guy who snubbed him should be of any interest to a reader is beyond me. I suppose Eric’s insecure loneliness is common to college freshmen who are putting high school behind them and haven’t yet made college connections, but Levithan does more telling than showing and Eric’s eventual confrontation with Noah struck me as artificial.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Safe Harbor by Nicola Yoon and David Yoon

Published by Amazon Original Stories on June 23, 2026

“Safe Harbor” is one of six entries in the “Edge of Everything” series of Amazon Original Stories that focus on coming-of-age themes. The story is shallow, but it might be comforting for parents who want to believe that their kids are capable of divining deep truths about themselves after spending a day with a therapist.

The story is narrated by a teenage girl named Isabel. To assure the absence of doubt about her “mood and angst level,” Isabel wears black eyeliner and black lipstick while painting her nails black and dressing in black combat boots. Isabel accuses her mother of not feeling her emotions, presumably because her mother doesn’t broadcast her emotions through depressing fashion choices.

Isabel’s parents divorced after her father took up with a younger woman. Isabel wants to return to the version of herself she was before the divorce (and wants to once again believe that love is real) but she doesn’t know how. This seems more like something a 40-year-old might say while explaining her emotional struggles when she was a teen, but much of the story struck me as being similarly artificial.

Isabel took an impulsive action that was symbolically destructive but not particularly damaging — Isabel, we are meant to understand, is a good kid who would never do anything really bad — but her parents decided to send her to the Safe Harbor program for teenage children of divorced parents. The program lasts only eight hours, but Isabel acts as if she has been exiled to Siberia. Well, she’s a teenage girl, so she is the essence of drama and overreaction.

There will be an assessment at the end of the day. The therapist will decide which attendees should be recommended for a six-week Saturday morning counseling program. Isabel makes an effort to participate only because she doesn’t want to ruin her Saturday mornings. Perhaps not wearing black lipstick would have been a smarter plan to achieve that goal.

Isabel draws charcoal sketches of other arriving teens, labeling them with pithy judgments, including SCREENAGER and DIVA. When the therapist arrives, they do exercises to work out their “big feelings.” As each kid talks (or doesn’t) about his or her parents’ divorce, the reader encounters a collection of troubled teens who would have been at home in The Breakfast Club. Gray is angry, Preethi is a people pleaser, Joey uses his phone as a shield against his warring parents, Lilliam shops at designer boutiques because her wealthy parents don’t have time for her. Lilliam is Molly Ringwald, Gray is Judd Nelson — you get the drift.

As the kids open up (which they do with surprising ease), Isabel withdraws her judgment of SCREENAGER and DIVA and realizes that they are struggling with their own issues just as she is struggling with hers. So yes, the story is a condensed and simplistic version of The Breakfast Club, without the hijinks and brutal honesty that made the movie a classic.

The kids are aided by a therapist who has problems of her own (her husband died and she is planning to wed her new boyfriend but they’re arguing about the wedding plans). Rather unprofessionally, she puts her fiancé on speaker and the kids hear them arguing. The therapist turns it into a teaching moment. Seriously?

Isabel makes several statements to broadcast her emotional maturity to the reader, including “I can be a big coward hiding behind a sketchbook to avoid the real world” and “I’m secretly as hopeful for this therapy session as I am scared of it” and “This is something different, something I realize I’ve been hungry for. This is someone saying, out loud, my fears and sorrows.” If she already has this level of insight, why does she need therapy? I didn’t buy any of it. Nor did I buy the pollyannish ending.

Maybe this could have evolved into a meatier story by developing the characters in depth. Having each kid give a two-sentence summation of the reason he or she was consigned to therapy camp doesn’t cut it. As a short story, “Safe Harbor” isn’t worth even the few minutes it will take a reader to consume it.  

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Price of Admission by Dustin Thao

Published by Amazon Original Stories on June 23, 2026

“The Price of Admission” is one of six entries in the “Edge of Everything” series of Amazon Original Stories that focus on coming-of-age themes. The protagonist is Evan Dao, a gay teen of Vietnamese ancestry whose mother worked as a hotel maid in New Jersey until she was promoted to the position of housekeeping manager.

Evan hung out at the hotel where his mother worked. The hotel owner’s family lived in a penthouse suite. Evan saw but didn’t interact with the owner’s son, Dalton Claremont.

Evan’s mother dies when he is fifteen and Evan begins to live with his aunt. Moved by Evan’s circumstances, a “loyal guest” of the hotel that employed his mother improbably arranges for Evan to attend a nearby but prestigious private school with a tuition waiver. Dalton is a student at that school.

Evan needs to take a job at a café to make ends meet. Dalton is at the café with rich friends when he notices Evan and realizes he’s a fellow student. Dalton’s snooty friends disparage Evan for working, but Dalton and Evan begin to hang out. Their friendship leads to kissing. Whether it leads to anything else, Dustin Thao leaves to the reader’s imagination.

Evan is exceptionally bright and excels in school. Evan and Dalton are both admitted to Princeton, although Evan is admitted before Dalton. In his first year, Evan writes a compelling essay and wins a scholarship that allows him to join an “eating club” with Dalton and other children of wealthy families.

Dalton begins to snub Evan. Some of Dalton’s friends are vicious in their condemnation of Evan as a charity case who must have relied on affirmative action to earn admission to Princeton. Evan eventually calls out the rich snobs by pointing to the moral deficiencies of their wealthy families.

“The Price of Admission” covers well-trodden ground in its exploration of class divisions and wealth disparities in America. Upward mobility is increasingly a myth, as is the notion that Ivy League educational institutions operate as a meritocracy. Even as the children of wealthy families condemn affirmative action, they enjoy the benefit of legacy admissions. Evan’s breakout moment, his calling out of privilege, rings true.

Evan comes of age by realizing that he wasted time trying to make friends with people who will never accept him as an equal. Even if meritocracy as envisioned by members of the upper class is more a talking point than a reality, Evan has the intelligence and drive to succeed. He comes to realize that social status is less important than friendships rooted in honesty and shared values.

This is a story that older readers will have encountered before. Everything comes a bit too easily to Evan, a reflection of the story’s lack of depth. I imagine younger readers who don’t have outstanding SAT scores might have difficulty relating to him. The story is nevertheless a timely reminder that attacks on affirmative action are driven by people who resist surrendering power or sharing it with those who are not part of their elite social class. Younger readers, in particular, might benefit from the lessons taught in this modern version of a Horatio Alger story.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS