Patricia Elzie-Tuttle is a writer, podcaster, librarian, and information fanatic who appreciates potatoes in every single one of their beautiful iterations. Patricia earned a B.A. in Creative Writing and Musical Theatre from the University of Southern California and an MLIS from San Jose State University. Her weekly newsletter, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice offers self-improvement and mental health advice, essays, and resources that pull from her experience as a queer, Black, & Filipina person existing in the world. She is also doing the same on the Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Podcast. More of her written work can also be found in Body Talk: 37 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy edited by Kelly Jensen, and, if you’re feeling spicy, in Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Patricia has been a Book Riot contributor since 2016 and is currently co-host of the All the Books! podcast and one of the weekly writers of the Read This Book newsletter. She lives in Oakland, CA on unceded Ohlone land with her wife and a positively alarming amount of books. Find her on her Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkTree.
Today’s book recommendation is a fast-paced new release. This queer science fiction has hefty portions of violence and feelings with a pinch of romance and some sweet revenge. While the main character is a human, the story is told from the point of view of a very special piece of technology that keeps readers guessing and engaged. This interplanetary game of dog-cat-mouse is an exciting read and I’m excited to share it with you.
Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon
Our scrappy lead character is Wylla, a trans woman who is getting by as a scavenger and in this universe, there are high-tech masks that people can wear. Wylla has a MARK I RABBIT, which is old and probably the worst mask on the market. The masks not only offer technical help like scanning electronics and the information infrastructure, maybe disabling alarms if they can, etc., but they also enhance the abilities of the person wearing the mask. For example, Wylla’s RABBIT offers prey animal-like instincts. It operates from a place of fear, which is not a negative point—it means that it focuses on keeping Wylla safe by doing things like watching out for threats and identifying escape options.
There is a large variety of masks available. The OX masks enhance a person’s strength. The RATTLESNAKE masks have jaws with fangs coated in poison. The CHAMELEON masks with their cloaking abilities are illegal in some areas. At the start of the book, Wylla receives a signal that was sent out to scavengers. In a place called Pholan’s World, there is a MARK I HAWK up for grabs. Usually the MARK I signifies an older mask (a MARK I SPIDER is the oldest spider, a MARK II OWL is the second version of the owl and so on). Using this logic, a person would assume that a MARK I HAWK is old technology, except Wylla has never heard of a HAWK. If this is real and if this is as big as she thinks it might be, then being able to grab this and then sell it off to a dealer could change her whole life. It’s not a simple handoff. There is violence and some gore—this book has plenty of violence and some gore. Also transphobia, just so you know heading into it.
Wylla secures the MARK I HAWK and in interacting with it, the mask seems sentient and it knows her name. Of course, Wylla is thoroughly weirded out. She takes it to a dealer to have it appraised and hopefully be able to sell it for so many credits that she will never have to scavenge again. In the examination of the mask, they discover that this MARK I HAWK is way more than it seems.
No one should have this mask. No one should even know about this mask. Now that it’s in Wylla’s possession, there are multiple targets on her back.
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Patricia
Find me on Book Riot, the All the Books podcast, Bluesky, and Instagram.
English (US) · 