Fiefdom, by Dan Abnett and Nik Vincent. A review

Approaching the second instalment of a story without reading what comes first is never recommended, for obvious reasons, and this advice is even more crucial when the genre is SFF. Chances are that important details about world-building have been given in the previous part, and ignoring them comes with a risk. There are however exceptions – books where the settings can be guessed nonetheless and the story is perfectly enjoyable and intelligible as such. Fiefdom is one of them.

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The plot is simple. In a post-apocalyptic Berlin, separate clans (fiefs) of genetically engineered dogs (the Aux) have to set up alliances among them to face the threat of monstrous insects, defined generically Them. The tricky part is that nobody believes they still exist at the beginning of Fiefdom. They have vanished since the new Ice Age has put them to sleep. They are considered by the Aux more like an origin myth than a clear and present danger. The few, like Evelyn War, that try to warn the rest of the pack, are treated with scorn and isolation, until the sheer reality of the monsters forces everybody to fight.

Fiefdom is the sequel of another story called Kingdom, where the ancestors of these same dogs had to defend the Earth from mutant insects. The protagonist there is Gene the Hackman, whose glory is chanted in Fiefdom as the ultimate hero but also like a personage of a myth, transmitted across generations by tale-tellers.

 “Gene the Hackman, top dog, him done the great Walk Around. Not for him the darkness, not for him the cold, not for him the Time of Ice that we know today. Gene the Hackman, him got whet and walked the Earth and him killed Them.”

There are a few things that make this story original – and so different from many others. First of all, there are no humans on the scene, and the point of view is the one of the Aux themselves. This leads to another peculiar characteristic – its narrative style: told in a broken English with a singsong ring, it’s weird at the beginning and vaguely epic after a while, but always enjoyable. Last but the not the least, there are constant references to literature and pop culture, with the Aux sometimes sporting actors and writers’ names, often adapted to fit the character’s personality traits. Together with Gene the Hackman, you have Ezra Pound, Makewar Thackeray, Oscar so Wild – just to mention some that made me smile.

I have mentioned you can enjoy the book as a stand-alone. This is maybe due to the fact that Fiefdom, as much as Kingdom, are in origin comics, and they have been translated into a novel only afterward. This makes a lot of sense. The reading modality of comics is different, and the stories themselves need a more agile configuration. The results are good, and under everybody’s eyes. This is a fascinating story, no matter the medium used to tell it. Incidentally, this video is a good introduction to the comics and to the whole Kingdom universe.

Albeit its originality, there’s something that will, on the other hand, ring a bell: in Fiefdom, the Aux lived until then in the Time of Ice. When this is over, and ice melts, it will bring back insects, monsters and fights. The feeling of an impending catastrophe weather-related is lingering, in a Games of Thrones atmosphere. In an interview, the authors denied any connection with GRR Martin about this specific point. If this is true, as I believe it is, it looks like a hint to the zeitgeist and to our hidden fears toward climate change. Winter is coming.

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