Koko Takes a Holiday

Author:  Kieran Shea

Publisher:  Titan Books

ISBN-10:  1-7811-6860-1

ISBN-13:  978-1-7811-6860-8

Disclosure: A free copy of this book was furnished by the publisher for review, but providing a copy did not guarantee a review. This information is provided per the regulations of the Federal Trade Commission.

“Five hundred years from now, ex-corporate mercenary Koko Martstellar is swaggering through an early retirement as a brothel owner on The Sixty Islands, a manufactured tropical resort archipelago known for its sex and simulated violence. Surrounded by slang-drooling boywhores and synthetic komodo dragons, the most challenging part of Koko’s day is deciding on her next drink. That is, until her old comrade Portia Delacompte sends a squad of security personnel to murder her.”  (publisher’s blurb)

This $14.95 333-page trade paperback novel is a combination of New Wave experimental sci-fi, Gibsonian cyberpunk, and video games heavy on extreme violence.  There is a kaleidoscope of different typefaces.  There are the futuristic argot and the wonky thought/speech patterns:

“So the dead Kongercat raiders who were in the bar?  The ones who called themselves Ying Fong and Chuòhao?  You bet them nasty dakini re-civs, but them foolish.  Them no expect my Koko-sama.  Be on The Sixty for carnival and all wasted on big liquor and high-happy with shift and shake, thinking them be better than her, but those two be dead wrong.  Koko-sama upright alphamama.”  (p. 13)

There is the excessive violence and the overall frantic pace:

“FU-CHEW!  FU-CHEW!  FU-CHEW!  Heads liquefying.

Dandelions of bone and bloody discharge patterning out.

Four shots are four kills, and the whole room is swallowed in flame.

Koko’s eyes sweep the burning area for signs of life before she charges up the stairs.  Not looking at Archimedes’ crumpled body on the landing, she yanks open all the doors to the rooms, shouting at the boywhores to move, move, move.” (p. 32)

There is the constant use of the present tense, and Koko’s search for bigger and better weapons:

“Koko takes the gun from Juke’s outstretched hand and drops into a few firing stances.  She swings the weapon around for weight and switches grips.  She has to hand it to the doughy blackguard, the big pervert knows her tastes.  Inserting the power clip into the gun, she inspects the digitized readout on the weapon’s housing.  The number indicates here thousand rounds.” (p. 89)

and:

“‘I don’t know yet,’ Koko says.  ‘Let’s just say that your mentioning it reminds me to ask if you have any blades for sale.  Based on my recent tangle, I’m probably headed for more one-on-one intensity.  Serrated lift point would be great.  Something with a clean edge on the opposite side, too.  Galvanized ceramic is okay, but I definitely want something that’s not going to fail on me when I decide to break bones.’” (p. 91)

Despite all the mayhem, there is enough character development to make Koko surprisingly sympathetic.  Shea even works some dark humor into the action, as when the leader of a team of assassins stalking Koko is interrupted by a personal call:

“Mu is about to update the others on her location when a personal audio message crashes in via her ocular.

Oh, who the —  Now?  Now?  Damn it to hell…

The audio patch is from Mu’s grandmother.

‘Bootsy, dear?’”

Mu attempts to sound upbeat and cheerful as she taps in respond.

‘Hey, Nana…’

Mu’s grandmother is ninety-six years of age and has no idea what Mu does now.”  (p. 166)

Years earlier, when Koko Martstellar was a free-lance mercenary, her best friend and “big sister” was Portia Delacompte, about ten years older.  Koko saved Portia’s life on one operation.  Eventually Portia retired to the commercial sector, and a few years later, as an executive at the Custom Pleasure Bureau, she recruited Koko to run The Sixty Islands, CPB’s star adult pleasure resort-brothel.  The establishment’s nature occasionally requires Koko to break a few heads, which is no big deal, until an armed security squad shows up to arrest her on a capital charge – claiming that senior v.p. Portia Delacompte has personally ordered her arrest.  Koko shoots her way out and escapes to the Second Free Zone, a second-rate orbital pleasure satellite outside of Earth’s jurisdiction – only to learn that Portia has apparently illegally hired mercenaries to follow and assassinate her.

Koko wonders why Portia has suddenly turned against her?

Back on Earth, so does Portia:

“But why?  Why does she want Martstellar dead?  Didn’t she once serve alongside the woman?  Weren’t they once friends?  Martstellar’s file seems to confirm this, yet every time Delacompte even attempts to evoke a shred of insight as to why she wants Koko dead, the electrical impulses of her brain fail and betray her.” (pgs. 41-42)

There is more than one type of brain failure in “Koko Takes a Holiday”.  Koko is on the run from the CPB’s hired killers, but she can’t get far from them on a space station until she meets Flynn, a seriously depressed SFZ security guard who is about to commit suicide.  Will Koko give him a new reason to live?  Or will he sacrifice himself for her?

The publisher gives away that Koko herself will survive, in the book’s advertisement for the sequel next year.  “Koko Takes a Trip” is shallow but fast-paced futuristic (2516 A.D.) action-fiction, aimed less at the readers of literary sci-fi than the fans of video games and spectacular VFX-filled super-hero movies.