Welcome to Boy.net

Earth's Shadow #1

by Lyda Morehouse

Lucia Del Toro and Independence ‘Hawk’ Hawking are a pair of happy-go-lucky bounty hunters, united in their passion for adventure and each other. Hawk grew up on a hippy science commune on the Earth’s Moon and has always been rootless and carefree. Del Toro, however, has a more complicated past, which is about to come back to haunt her.

Politics in the Solar System are always fraught. A key player is the UN’s crack regiment of space marines, the ENForcers. They are as hardcore and testosterone-fuelled as military units come, and proudly all-male. Being cyborgs they are all connected through a bioware network known as boy.net. Lucia’s link to that network is one of many things that Del Toro thought she’d put behind her when she got out of the military and changed her life. But, with the security of the Solar System at stake, she will soon have a choice to make.

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBT

355 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 25, 2024

About the author

Lyda Morehouse writes about what gets most people in trouble: religion and politics. Her first novel Archangel Protocol, a cyberpunk hard-boiled detective novel with a romantic twist, won the 2001 Shamus for best paperback original. Apocalypse Array was awarded the Special Citation of Excellence (aka 2nd place) for the Philip K. Dick award.

This author also writes paranormal under the name Tate Hallaway.

Reviews

[Victoria Janssen]

Welcome to Boy.net (Earth's Shadow Book 1) by Lyda Morehouse is set in Earth's solar system a good while after the Archangel books, long enough that most people thing Earth is largely abandoned; also, you don't have to have read (or remember) the prior books to enjoy this. Mars is now the dominant power, and the people farther out avoid their area of influence, and their ENForcer space marines, as much as possible. This book follows a lesbian couple, one from the science-focused and culturally progressive Moon, the other a trans defector who fled the ENForcers, who want her back to reprogram both mentally and physically via nanobots and her cybernetic enhancements. Though the opening felt like a held breath, the plot swiftly starts rolling and doesn't really stop through a sequence of different environments and encounters with fun, quirky secondary characters. It's a very inclusive book, with disabled characters who use cybernetic enhancements, a character with dyslexia, a Deaf character, and people with a range of genders and sexual preferences. Also, at a key moment activists show up and I love that for this story. We need more books showing activism happening in different ways. This is from a small press, so I hope it gains traction and we get more in this series!

[Rachel Ashera Rosen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this. It's a rollicking space opera with plenty of pew-pew-pew, but it's also a heartfelt, realistic take on body dysphoria, disability, and queerness that never feels glossed over or didactic. The story of a badass cybernetic space marine turned bounty hunter and accidental anarchist, it's cool as hell and a delight from start to finish. I can't wait to see where she takes it from here.

[Penn Hackney · Rating 4 out of 5]

2024. Bought on 5/24/24 for $6.34 on recommendation of David Lenander and then to read with the author at the North Country Gaylaxians meeting on 8/11/26. I also bought her debut novel, Archangel Protocol (2001), that won the Shamus Award for Best Original Paperback Private Eye Novel, and a nomination for the 2002 Locus Award for Best First Novel, while the series' 4th volume, Apocalypse Array (2004), received a Special Citation from the Philip K. Dick Award in 2005.

Author b. 1967: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyda_Mo...

Much more here: https://grokipedia.com/page/lyda_more...

I love books that switch p.o.v. characters.

Lucia Del Toro (formerly Lucian)
Independence “Hawk” Hawking

Lucia’s crèche siblings, surprising allies? in rank order:
Daniel Sulanov
Simon Farooqi
Tootega Noayak
Marcus Ali

Bad guy ENForcers:
Brigadier General Zhu Wei
Jakob Zielinski, Lucia’s replacement

Unexpected allies (also a trope):
Tchadzwa coffee shop cashier
Jaabir Ncube, the stranger in ch. 16

Ambiguous allies:
Yarō
Ozmerelda Jackson
3 police officers:
Detective
Officer Khalil
Officer Ferreria

Some vibes from Finder (2019) by Suzanne Palmer, another palate cleanser with engaging characters getting into humorous yet serious mischief and fighting real, if clownish, bad guys, on a planetary scale.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And with themes of politics, religion, feminism, in a cyberpunk techno futurism world, so Very Cool.

Also some plotting, characters, and world-building from William Gibson meets Elmore Leonard.

Lucia’s backstory is affecting: crèche, ‘defected’ (deserted) almost ten years ago, because she doesn’t want to be a boy; she was ‘taken by the ENForcers at a tender young age’ then ‘augmented and “corrected”’ p. 119, so she is ‘basically’ ‘a tank’ p. 122, but oh, so female! The police get it, even if the ENForce does not.

“The Lunar Conference [of 2144] codified the idea that the only true human act was resistance.” p. 59

Machine learning

United Mine Workers (United Miners)

Water more valuable than booze, p. 60; and tastier

With Yarō, cf. Joseph, a wanna-be cowpoke with a chuck wagon car, a Western movie fanatic, in The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis. I was sorry Yarō did not become one of a ‘3 musketeers.”

Instead we get Ozmerelda, ally or adversary?

They think and talk a lot about sex (doesn’t everyone?), but without the graphic nonsense (thank you, Lyda).

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose: hotel corridors, humans bring their pests wherever they go, using one’s ‘pad’ to look up reviews, “the business card in Hawk’s pocket beeped, reminding them they had a train to catch” p. 155; aurora; old Earth idioms; “And also to you!” Passwords kept on a sheet of paper; Peapod / Pequod; lunatics; the archetypical blue button down shirt; ‘dusters’; “nothing made her more aware that she was an outdated model like the next generation talking about the newest trends”; Sherlock Christie; licking the tip of a pencil; retro casual wear p. 206; “Universal Solar System law says I have the right to film any protest.” p. 215; “Don’t automatically comply” (don’t comply in advance) p. 216; in-fighting among the left p. 218; “Does he really have the authority for all this?” “No. This is the usual ploy. Just steamroll in and out before anyone thinks to question.” p. 222; information extraction (enhanced interrogation) = torture p. 222; duty to refuse an illegal order pp. 148, 226; twink (gay slang for a thin, young-looking man);

imprecations by invoking Heisenberg, Bohr, Newton, Richter, Freud, Curie, Mendel,

All the self-consciously Old Earth idioms are cute

Hard-boiled detective tropes that I love! threats to quit investigating, finding a dead body at the meeting place, searching the place before calling the cops, fraught and reluctant alliance with the police

Tchadzwa continued to strategize with his Grella antifa corps. Ch. 14.

The efficacy of Silent Running explained - very cool.

[Naomi Kritzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got to read this pre-publication, and it's GREAT. The thing about Lyda Morehouse's worldbuilding is that she builds her stuff around the rule-of-cool, then flips it all over to show you the underside and the price. You see the place that was built with the Rule of Cool two decades later, as the employees are still trying to keep the air from leaking out and the cold from leaking in.

This is very much a found-family story, where by "family" I mean a pair of lesbian space pirates and the communist baristas, rogue scientists, and fellow military deserters they meet along the way.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun, action-packed space opera while simultaneously being a story about identity, body autonomy, and love.

The ENForcers are a testosterone-fueled cyborg army, all-male, anti-queer, anti-trans, and Lucia is AWOL… and a transwoman. She and her girlfriend Hawk are bounty hunters, but after a job goes wrong Lucia has to fight not only for her life, but also for the right to control her own body.

And is that an AngeLINK Easter Egg I see?

[Richard Pearce-moses · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rollicking space opera filled with adventure and romance (although I'd never describe it as a romance novel). Plus some great characters that are struggling with what it means to be non-binary (and lots of other ideas). The relationship between Lucia and Hawk is really well developed. Amazing world building.

Plus, there's a hook at the end for a sequel! Can't wait to read that!

[dragonhelmuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! I wasn't sure I would like this but it is so well-written and has such beautiful sentiments about transness, as well as just diverse characters using sign language, being poly, eating Vietnamese food, visiting anarchist communities. I was expecting grimdark but this is more futurepunk - loved it!

[Siobhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a sucker for a found-family story and this is definitely one of those. It is also wild adventure, a political intrigue, and a queer romance. I genuinely loved this book and I can't wait for the sequel.