Book Review: A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde

Fran Wilde’s A Philosophy of Thieves mixes a heist story, a found family story, and a nuanced and considered look at a post-climate-change future story into a readable combination

Roosala Vane lives a double life (at least double). She’s studying at great expense at an academy in New Washington, her technical skills blossoming and growing. In her world, she seeks to become a creator and designer and builder of printed objects (and also, a hacker).  But that is not her own identity. She is really Roo.

Roo is a member of the famous (and infamous) Canarvier troupe. The rich and powerful of this world have a particular game they like to play. They like to hire troupes of thieves to crash their opulent parties and steal from the guests and the estate. These hirings are carefully negotiated as to where and what is out of bounds, and the game is to try and catch the thieves before time runs out. The Canarviers are the best in the business. They don’t get caught, they stay within the contract, they are flashy and showy, and give the guests a good time. But times are tight and they have to take a tricky contract. One that will push Roo to the limit.

And, it turns out, Roo has an identity that she herself doesn’t even know...

Roo’s story is the heart of Fran Wilde’s A Philosophy of Thieves.

The heart of the book is Roo’s drives. She is the engine that keeps the novel going. We start off with a Canarvier heist, but things go wrong from the get go. The leader of the Canarviers, King, is captured. The Canarvier troupe is on the knife’s edge, and Roo not only needs a way to free King, but help keep the Canarviers solvent. And so she agrees to do a gig for Mason Graves and her girlfriend Evangeline Benford. The Benfords are rich and powerful, and the money for the gig could be enough to spring and free King on bail before he is shipped off to Alaska. So Roo is determined to get this gig to go off, get the money, free her mentor, and keep the Canarviers going.

This does not quite go to plan, and the novel delves into a rapidly rising series of improvises, plots, plans (including Mason’s) and the aforementioned identity that Roo is thrust into, very unwillingly. It’s not so much a heist novel as a post-climate-change technothriller that has strong worldbuilding and revolves around family and family relations, and the prices one is willing to pay for their ambitions and dreams.

I do want to say a few more words about Roo, no matter what name you give her. (More importantly, and a subtle point Wilde makes, it’s her for to decide how she names herself.) Roo is an extremely Wilde character that readers of her earlier work will find classic grace notes in. A relatively young woman, intelligent, clever, fierce in all the right ways. Sometimes self-doubting, but always loyal and determined to achieve her ends, which often revolve around her family and those whom she loves and protects. The very forward way Roo moves to try and meet her goals (which are so aligned with others, rather than herself) is endearing and sometimes painful. While we have a good sense of all the characters, especially the alternate POV Mason, Roo is where the heart of this book lies.

But it is the world, no surprise to anyone who has read more than one of my reviews, that really sucked me in and kept me turning pages. Yes, I was engaged strongly with Roo and her plight, struggles and adventures. (I only slowly warmed up to Mason; I kept seeing him as an adversary although he is much more *opposition* than *adversary* to Roo.) But it is the world that we see that is real and developed just enough for us to exert a playground of the imagination.

It’s a world after climate change has had its hammer blow. Seas have risen. Areas everywhere are devastated, to the point that even the atmosphere outside of domed or climate-controlled areas is detrimental to human health. There is a definite social and economic stratification of society in this world: Enclaves, Towns, and then the Skirts, which are definitely a drop in social class, and then the often poisonous and barely habitable regions outside of those. Crossing those regions is dangerous in and of itself, as we see a situation where a crossing goes wrong and leaves some of the characters in a salt flat where, if not rescued, they will absolutely die.

Wilde’s worldbuilding goes far beyond geography and goes into the implications of a post-climate-change world on things large and small. The loss of some of our cultural heritage as the seas rose, and the preciousness by which the rich hoard what they do hoard, is a particularly noticeable beat. And while this is a word of hacking and 3D printing, there are things that are hard and rare to come by. Natural foods like fresh blueberries are a treat only for the rich, grown in a greenhouse at high expense. And this is a world that is disconnected, too. We don’t get a sense of the grand politics (is there a United States still? *Maybe*), but not only are the city-states of this world seemingly semi-autonomous if not even more so (with a heaping side of corporate state politics), but getting to other Towns and Enclaves is mentioned as being difficult even for the ultra-wealthy Benfords.

It’s not something that is ever casually done. This leads more to the idea that this is a fragmented world, where Towns and Enclaves, with their Skirts around, are islands of civilization surrounded by devastation. While the rich and powerful are doing okay, those on more slippery rungs of the ladder need help. This is a society that the rich barely recognize as a society. And yet, while it is not the most pleasant of post-climate-change worlds, but it is one that Roo helps us be convinced is worth trying to save, rebuild and improve.

One interesting bit of worldbuilding and also a way to convey information is the in-world documents that pop up between chapters. Wilde’s excerpts from a digital magazine called Enclave and Towne provide board messages, private feeds, and more. It all feels a bit like Wilde has taken a page from Stand on Zanzibar, although the messages, articles and more are very much hyperlocal. Rather than trying to build out the world beyond the narrative (as we see in the Brunner novel), these documents review, reflect and comment on the action or action-adjacent items. It helps focus and direct the worldbuilding further to the plot and characters, and yet allows us the playground of the imagination that suggests there are plenty more feeds and channels like this we do not see.

I’ve been thinking about expectations lately, where a book’s logline or descriptive text do or do not match the reading experience. And so I want to quote from the promotional materials from the book:

“In these pages, you’ll find aspects of gaslamp fantasy complete with suave lords, charming rogues and high-stakes social events. You’ll find intricately planned and dangerous heists, brought together by a team of sniping but loving family members united around reclaiming their leader and father, King. And you’ll find astute interrogation of climate change and class in the tradition of our most esteemed science fiction.”

This all comes out nicely, except the phrase “gaslamp fantasy” kind of sticks in my craw a bit. Is it that we don’t quite have a good phrase for the kind of SFF that this book is a part of? There used to be, once upon a time, a phrase called “Fantasy of Manners” that was common in some corners of the SFF genresphere... back when it was in paper fanzines and maybe early newsgroups. It’s a mode of SFF that is very social- and class- oriented in nature, and often would deal with these strata of society in one form or another. Wilde’s novel definitely does this in spades, commenting on the very stratified society of her post-climate-change setting. There are a lot of scenes of intrigue, manners and social situations inside of those halls.

It’s not quite steampunk or dieselpunk; the punk is not there, but the aesthetic and feel are there. But can you have it outside of the time period?

The first time I came across this was in Walter Jon Williams’s Drake Maijstral novels, where a minor aristocrat/burglar in a galactic empire where Earth is conquered gets himself into some very funny situations, with social commentary to match. The feel is of this Fantasy of Manners throughout. Also recently, is work such as Malka Older’s Mossa and Pleiti novellas, which are set on space platforms orbiting Jupiter. While the nobles are replaced by academics squabbling and jockeying with each other, the “gaslamp fantasy” feel is there. Novels such as Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit also seem to partake of this sub-sub-genre. But again, can you have gaslamp fantasy set in the future? It’s not a gigantic niche of books, and gaslamp is the closest thing we have to a way to describe it. Gaslamp fantasy may almost set the expectations for the reader, but as a term for novels set out of period, it is a frustratingly incomplete and inaccurate term for novels such as Wilde’s. (A counterpoint: there ARE airships of a sort, even on the cover of the novel itself.)

Genre assignments aside, the novel does feel complete, deliciously done and recommended to all and sundry. However. the ending suggests a potential for future stories, and the back cover has #TheCanarvierFiles. Is there a sequel in the works? If so, I’d read it. Roo, once again, is a main draw, as is the world Wilde has built. I far more associate Wilde with her fantasy than with her SF, and this novel shows that I should recalibrate that association. More, please.

Highlights:

• The strong and abiding main character of Roo, and her struggles with identity, and her drives and needs.
• Vivid commentary by illumination of class, power, and wealth in a post-climate-change society.
• Come for the heists, stay for the worldbuilding.
• This Highlight approved by the Enclave and Towne, Stillwater Edition.

Reference: Wilde, Fran. A Philosophy of Thieves [Kensington Books/Erewhon, 2025].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Film Review: M3GAN 2.0

If your sequel requires that you wipe away all the characterization from the original, maybe it's a sign that not everything needs to be a franchise

The first M3GAN film was a contained family drama with a measured sprinkle of techno-horror; it had a strong grip on its themes of parental neglect and the anxieties of digital interactions; and it knew not to take itself too seriously. But now that studios mistake a successful release for an invitation to launch a franchise, a sequel was inevitable. Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, this new entry doesn't feel like it's even set in the same universe as the first. M3GAN 2.0 drops entirely the horror and turns its titular killer doll into an acrobat/spy/hacker who suddenly knows kung fu. The plot explodes in size to include a decades-long corporate conspiracy, government cover-ups, international black ops, and a mysterious piece of hardware that may or may not have bootstrapped itself into godhood.

The impossible transition from the smaller plot of the first movie to the tutti-frutti of the sequel is handled via an interminable infodump clumsily disguised in the script as a therapy session for Cady, the girl who had to endure, and barely survived, M3GAN's increasingly toxic protection. Hearing the way she narrates the aftermath of M3GAN's stabby rampage, it's obvious that she isn't really saying this to a therapist. The infodump commits the unforgivable rudeness of extending into the next scene, this time disguised as a sales pitch: Cady's aunt and M3GAN's creator, Gemma, has reformed her company and now builds assistive technology for the disabled. It's very on brand for her established obliviousness that she doesn't figure out by herself that her new inventions could easily be weaponized by malicious parties; at least this bit of characterization is kept consistent. But when she's approached by the government with questions about her suspected involvement in the creation of another rogue robot, she takes surprisingly little time to enlist M3GAN's help, prior assassination attempts notwithstanding.

What comes next is a drastic revision of the main trio of characters, which depletes the viewer's suspension of disbelief even before we get to the convenient underground lair and the wingsuit stunts, but without that change, we can't have the second act, where M3GAN needs a new, stronger body. So, out of nowhere, now Gemma has to treat M3GAN as a confidant with whom she vents about her parenting frustrations; Cady brushes away the horrific trauma of having almost been mutilated by her doll and now suspects she's capable of developing human feelings; and M3GAN has to quickly explain, in her signature snarky tone, that she's had time to mature and reflect on her past misdeeds. Good! Now that our protagonists have easily forgotten their main motivations, with their mortal enmity thrown out the window, they can cooperate to defeat the killer robot that someone has set loose.

Said killer robot is one of the high points of the movie. Ivanna Sakhno does a spectacular job playing an unfeeling machine that nonetheless conveys deadly menace with just a look. In a scene where she infiltrates a tech bro's house to get access to his secure files, she channels the steely singlemindedness of Kristanna Loken in Terminator 3 and seamlessly merges it with the uncanny feigned innocence of Lisa Marie in Mars Attacks! Another reason why this scene works so well is the brilliant casting choice for the tech bro: Jemaine Clement, who already demonstrated in Harold and the Purple Crayon that he knows how to portray an insufferably arrogant manchild with zero self-awareness. Another new character, played by Aristotle Athari, is a walking plot twist with blinking neon arrows pointing at him, but he performs his role with an exquisitely precise understatedness that makes him the right amount of annoying before the reveal and the right amount of spine-chilling after.

These good choices, however, don't suffice to rescue the film from its absurdly complicated plot. Moving M3GAN to Team Good should require an immense amount of inner growth that the script doesn't have time for; instead, it speed-runs through the checkpoints of apology and redemption and gives the character a sentimental side that doesn't convince. M3GAN 2.0 manages to reach higher peaks of silly camp than the original, and on that level is perfectly enjoyable, but its experiment with spy thriller action leading to the end of the world forces the story to carry a load of heavy themes that it doesn't know how to balance. The new model looks shinier and cooler, but is by no means an upgrade.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Book Review: Atacama by Jendia Gammon

A pulse-pounding SF/Thriller hybrid that feels like a modern day episode of The X-Files.

Fiona Hawthrone has a problem. Her best friend Alva, a researcher in the titular Atacama desert in South America is dead, along with the entirety of her team... and all the signs point to something like murder. There’s not a lot that Fiona can do about it from all the way in eastern Tennessee, but soon she is wrapped up in the mystery of her death, a strange and powerful corporation, and something else, even more unexpected. Something impossible. Something extraordinary.

This is the story of Jendia Gammon’s Atacama.

In the tagline above, I mentioned The X-Files, and I do think that using that as the model is the best way to describe and follow the throughline of the book. After a strange in medias res prologue (that appears to be actually an excerpt from a different story altogether set in the same verse), we are plunged into the at-first quotidian life of Dr. Fiona Hawthorne. We get a “bang” of an opener right away as she gets the news the entire expedition to the Atacama that included her friend Alva is dead, no sign of the bodies, nothing. Fiona is then inexorably, piece by piece caught up in a whirlwind of intrigue as, given that she is Alva’s best friend, a number of parties come to call on her, not all of them with her best interest in mind. And of course she wants to know what happened to Alva, and what it all means. 

Thus, for a good portion of the book, there is only the barest hint of a SFF tone to the book, the book preferring to the technothriller slash mystery and also a deep dive into Fiona’s character and life. We get a strong sense of her as a character, as someone who has had Alva’s death push her off what was already a precarious cliff. A lot of the novel is her working through her friend’s death and what it means for her, and for those around her. Gammon does the emotional and psychological beats of this rather well, bringing us firmly into Fiona’s mindset and her precarious state. (the entire book is from her point of view).

And as you might expect, eventually, all roads lead to the Atacama desert, and Fiona finding out what is really going on and what happened to Alva and the remainder of her team. The time in eastern Tennessee is the prelude, background and foundation for Fiona’s fateful trip to South America. And the point is made that Eastern Tennessee is a very different place, in terms of physical geography and environment, than the driest of deserts, the Atacama. It’s quite the cultural and physical shock for Fiona when she goes there, and a writing shock as well.¹

There are some mysterious goings on in Tennesse. However when it does come time to really ramp up the genre elements (and I should be clear, that also includes notes of horror that we saw before in Tennessee, but really get a real dose of here), mysterious doings at the college, the strange corporation known as Cuprum, and the slow unveiling of what is really going on, the trip to the Atacama and what is there and why really bring this facet of the novel to life. Since the unraveling of that secret and what it is and what it means is really a treasure to be savored, I do have to draw a curtain around the central mystery of the book. I do point at my earlier statement that this really is an X-Files episode in tone. Mysterious doings, a character under pressure, and a mysterious entity, and the mysterious Cuprum.

Although there are a set of interesting characters around Fiona (including Alva, whom we get to know of, after death), Cuprum is the star of the book that I really want to discuss besides Fiona herself. While she has that interesting set of co-stars and characters to bounce off of, where the book really sings, aside from its central mystery and genre element, is Cuprum. If you like weird faceless corporations with that sinister and higher-tech-than-anyone-should-have sort of vibe, Cuprum is here for you. This is an advancement, a evolution from the days of the X-Files where it would have been a quasi or fully government agency that was behind what is going on. Here, Gammon goes with the times to a very creepy international corporation with an unknown agenda and even more unknown and unearthly technology at its disposal. 

There is a piece of tech, though, that Cuprum employs in the book that I didn’t quite accept as being realistic. It’s necessary for the plot, especially for the denouement, but given the ending, I think it is not strictly necessary, and given that it did somewhat break my suspension of disbelief a bit, I think it could have been done without or handled somewhat differently. Otherwise, the resolution of the story and the mystery and the “sting in the tail” at the end of the novel are all very classic X-files like techniques which are really employed here well.

That’s the thing about this novel. It’s definitely more mystery, strange occurrences, X-Files-esque feel and tone, with a strong side dish of personal growth, a strong sense of place (both in Eastern Tennessee and in the Atacama) than it really is a straight up science fiction novel.It sits near the borders of science fiction, technothriller and even mystery. It feels also, for all of its genre elements, to be a very personal, introspective and a story of the author’s heart. There is a real care and touch to Fiona’s life and story here that feels weirdly intimate, and it helped draw me into her story, and the story of the novel in general. 

I want to say a few words about the writing, because it really needs a little more highlighting beyond what I’ve said before. Be it the interiority of Fiona’s head and mind as she is going through a lot of trauma (a real highlight of the book to treat such a subject with such care in the writing) or the descriptions of the locales, or the twisting plot and intrigue, the writing flows smoothly and well. The novel is a complicated piece of moving parts, but the author is always on top of what is happening, and plays fair with the reader at the same time. On a sentence by sentence level, there is a strong execution of the craft here, and the overall structure of the plotting is very sound. I keep going back to the X-Files as my touchstone here, but this really is like a good X-Files episode: crisp, well paced, and page-turning.

Finally it should be noted that the novel is also illustrated gorgeously, from the cover, through each chapter, to the end, a real compliment to the writing. Overall, this makes the experience of reading the book lush, inventive and immersive. It may be less strongly genre than maybe I would have liked, but it was an excellent and entertaining read. 

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Highlights:

• Immersive writing with a strong character focus
• Excellent X-Files like feel 
• Strong sense of place both in Tennessee and in the deadly desert

Reference: Gammon, Jendia, Atacama, [Sley House Publishing, 2025]

¹ Given the recent terrible flooding and damage done to this region by Hurricane Helene, the parts of the novel set in Eastern Tennessee hit even harder than they normally would. Also, I was also reminded of the TV series The Peripheral, which has its setting in the same area (in point of fact, the town where much of that footage was filmed was particularly hard hit by the hurricane).

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.