Accidental Creatures

by Anne Harris

Anne Harris returns with an outstanding look at the near future. Never before has her technological insight been so acute, or her portrayal of sex and gender issues more startling or insightful.

A bio-technology corporation has created a new species, intelligent, four-armed, humanoid "tetras" who can live in the vats in which "the company" grows biopolymers. Both the tetras and the human vat-divers they were created to replace are at the mercy of vicious corporate politics. But soon the victims become the aggressors, and something amazing, a transcendent change, occurs not only in their lives, but throughout the world. Anne Harris has created an extraordinary, breathtaking vision of the future.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy, Cyberpunk

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book! One of the most intriguing science fiction/ fantasy genre books I've read in a long time. Some of the stuff was a bit cliche, but enough of it was original enough that you can forgive the cliche's. Lots of different characters, lots of history for all of them and enough tension to know that something big is going to happen. From the very beginning you see two different parts of the war that's brewing, but the war is unlike any war, ever.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 3 out of 5]

The young queen of a sentient race, created by a brilliant scientist in the pay of an immense corporation to compete with humans for jobs, escapes and makes common cause with the workers she was developed to replace.

[Lheaney7hotmail.Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been awhile since I have re-read this book but it remains one of my favorite

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took a long time to get where it was going, but I liked the concept.

[Julian · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are many intriguing scientific inventions, conflicts that remain familiar for the present day, and a kind of general wackiness that caught my attention early. I felt that that promise was left behind partly through for a similar but different book, resulting in a disappointing experience. Somewhat incoherent without attention to much of any character development (or reasons for quick changes), all I can really say is that it ended. I suppose a good amount of people were bisexual, but in that fickle kind of portrayal I can’t say I long for.

[✨ Bookferatu ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's future Detroit, the automobile industry is rendered obsolete, biotechnology is the new commerce and the leading manufacturer is GeneSys, the world's leading producer of an artificial, organic fabric called biopolymer. This corporation also creates (and exploits) a mutant species called the "tetras"; humanoid vat divers who can live in the highly toxic liquid vats down in "Vattown" and harvest the biopolymer grown to meet the material needs of America and the world.

Strongly centering on biotechnology, this story is loaded with cyberpunk elements: designer drugs "blast", the obligatory evil megalithic corporation which overshadows the socioeconomic underclass it creates, involves genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, politics, labour unions and people (and some not really human people) existing on the fringes of a Vattown society of endless poverty, but it's also a futuristic mystery and a queer romance drawing together several coming-of-age stories, including the two main characters - scavenger Chango who survives by doing odd jobs and lives out of her car and Helix, a young, sheltered four-armed woman adopted by a research scientist who works for GeneSys and who finds herself irresistibly, inexplicably drawn to the vats...

This was a well-paced and very passionate storytelling of an interesting and original science fiction mystery set in a cyberpunk atmosphere and I really enjoyed reading it. Recommended for anyone who enjoys elements of mutants, queer romance, justice and corporate resistance!

[M.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anne Harris is wonderfully entertaining. I recommend this one frequently. It's about a dyke couple growing up in a working class community of laborers in future Detroit. They're living in the aftermath of a vicious class war/union organizing campaign, surviving in one of the most dangerous industries around: vat diving. They don scuba gear and dive into genetically engineered growth pools. The material is highly toxic, and they all suffer from severe health problems. This follows one of their kids, a dyke punk kid, and her new mysterious friend with four arms. Quickly they are drawn into a corporate conspiracy involving the synthetic manufacture of women.

It's not the best written thing in the world; you have to have some love of genre fiction. But the writing is workable, and its rich themes of queers and workers battling corporate genetic manufacturers is absolutely delightful. I grew to really adore the protagonist.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A corny collection of biochemistry puns - picture a future where manufacturing is no longer an industry as everything is grown from biopolymers that exist in toxic vats. The world is in castes, the shrewed businessmen, the nearly omnipotent scientists who live comfortably in ivory towers, and the downtrodden proletariat, working to their deaths in cell culture factories riddled with danger.

It's so goofy, everything is bio related. It's not paint, it's a self-repairing solar-powered mix called Plaint. It's not concrete, it's cloncrete. Not chain-link fence, but genelink fence. Enough already, it's overkill. I give this two stars because it's silly, depends too much on hyperbole of innovations that are presently implausible, and a needlessly messianic deus-ex-machina ending that would have been better suited for a Woody Allen movie.

Actually, if Woody bought the rights to this and gave it the "What's Up, Tigerlilly?" treatment it might not be half bad. Pity he didn't.

[Celia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a kind of odd book cover to be reading on public transport. In Vattown, workers dive in toxic vats to harvest biological materials, while the company who runs the town experiment with genetic manipulation in order to create creatures who can dive in the vats without toxic effects. They succeed (hence our multi-armed chick on the cover), and the story gets a leetle bit crazily ambitious from there. It had some cool ideas though, and I liked the vat creatures.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The science was interesting, and the premise of the story was intriguing. The opening of the book was promising, but was bogged down by its character, most of whose personalities were neither distinctive nor distinguishable from one another or who contradicted themselves unconvincingly. The plot contained problematic holes as well. With another couple of revisions the book could have been very good.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first library sale purchase. 50 cents and sci-fi. I devoured. Back in 1999 at the Phoenix Public Library.

I'm re-reading this for the first time this year as I've finally got my hands on another copy. I shall not judge it harshly for it is too fond a find for me. I try hard not to revisit my early favs but I feel it is time.

I have read her other books more recently. This was the last of the three she published that I did not own. To a nostalgic read!

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was awesome, and really, really strange! I swear, sometimes I don't know where fiction writers get their ideas. Super political, smart, and interesting. Lots to think about in terms of labor, "normalcy," environmental justice, corporate power, and resistance. Recommended.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's futuristic and weird, two things I love in a novel.

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting premise, good (diverse!) characters, and set in future Detroit.

[Rain · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light fun read with lesbian characters - a little over-the-top on the corny cliches - but enjoyable if you dont take it too seriously.

[Maya Morikawa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting

While I didn't like this much,the story was very interesting,about new species.
The characters reasonably done but I just couldn't get into it.

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an entertaining novel. However, it was written in a way that I can only call fluff. It had an interesting premise and interesting ideas, but the execution made it feel like pulp fiction. It made for very easy reading. In fact, I read it in two days; granted a lot of that was during down time at work. The book is packed with a lot of action and dialogue. There’s not much in the way of quality prose. But it was fun and light.

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