This clarity, unfortunately, does not extend much further than that. I always know where Hwa is, where her opponent is, and what awesome way she’s taking him down. The fight scenes are numerous and crystal clear. It’s no secret that Hwa kicks all kinds of butt.

The book is strongest in its action sequences. She constructs a fascinating setting, extrapolating the reaches of human nature, technology, and what happens when the two intermix.Īshby’s world is new and innovative, with enough references to Canadian culture to firmly root the setting here in the True North, but not so many that you begin to roll your eyes and wonder which Tim Hortons all the moose in toques are gathering at before their hockey game. No stranger to mixing woman with machine, Madeline Ashby, author of the Machine Dynasty series, continues experimenting with questions of what it means to be human in an increasingly artificial world. What was once a symbol of her status as poor has become her greatest asset. She is unable to be hacked, controlled, or cheated. to act as personal bodyguard for his teenage heir, Joel. It is because of her organic status that Hwa is conscripted by Zachariah Lynch, the patriarch of Lynch Ltd. Where others have cameras built into their eyes, implants in their brains, and vaccines for countless diseases, Hwa is completely organic. Subject to a disease that makes her prone to seizures and marks half of her body with a birthmark, Hwa is an outcast in a society filled with augmented human beings. When we meet our protagonist, Go Jung-hwa, she is working as a bodyguard for the United Sex Workers of Canada and teaching self-defense classes on the side. After the original rig is consumed by flames, New Arcadia is established, built by the powerful Lynch family who plaster their logo on every tall building. Company Town takes place in the unique setting of an oil rig the size of a city off the coast of Newfoundland.

Company town ashby