Book review: I Can Transform You by Maurice Broaddus

I Can Transform You is made up of two stories, with the first bearing the same name as the book. I Can Transform You starts out very much like a long familiar trope of a loose cannon PI brought in to consult on a case involving the murder of his former partner. The trappings of a dystopian sci-fi world do little to change this formula during the journey through a well worn path. A suspect is found with an orgy of evidence to implicate them, and the brass are happy to close the case there. But of course there’s something else going on, with people in the upper echelons of society pulling the strings to frame a two-bit felon and offer up a neat tidy package for the evening news.

In maybe 75% of the story, you could find the same idea present in any hard-boiled detective story, and the future setting with its trappings of bioengineering and cybernetic officers might be seen as superfluous. But it’s in the final quarter that all those little crumb-clues begin adding up to a bigger conspiracy and lead to an explanation for the changes in the world. Then the pieces of world-building become more important in explaining the stakes of this one seemingly open and closed case.

Mac Peterson’s washed out PI is balanced by the tight-laced and cybernetically enhanced Ade Walters, and both play a verbal tug of war teasing out bits of character development from each other. Mac’s a rebel without a cause who’s too afraid of himself to ever let anyone get close to him. He numbs his insecurities with drugs, alcohol or sex; whatever’s available to take the edge off. On the other hand, Ade is a man well aware of his past and his pains associated with it, and he chooses work as his addiction. The law is his refuge from a dysfunctional family, but his loyalties are put to the test by this case in particular.

So we have trappings of a buddy cop movie mixed with a strong dose of dystopia, plus one other trope I can’t reveal without spoiling the conclusion. It’s hard to sell me on dystopias, but this one works by focusing on the struggles of the main characters to the point where the world building is just window dressing to the real point of the story. There’s no definite ending to the story, only the implied ideal of a longer battle in which justice must throw off the strangle-grip hold of bureaucratic laws or risk dooming the entire human race to a death of choking apathy. When it comes to dystopias I do like, I prefer this kind of ending, the uncertainty of victory versus the ridiculous ideal of one person overthrowing an entire system of oppression with a few hollow words and meaningless actions. So yeah, the first story worked for me.

The second, not so much. Pimp My Airship is a steampunk story, and I have yet to read any of these from any author that roused my interest. I can understand the aesthetic appeal of alternate technology for some fans, and the historical appeal for others. But I hold no fascination for either of these things, and so most steampunk flies far, far off my radar.

It doesn’t help that I know very little about the three characters beyond their struggle and their plans to attack a prison complex. Despite Deaconess Blues and Knowledge Allah speaking in lofty terms, their plan amounts to little more than a suicide mission that will likely do little to change the balance of power in this alternate world. I get their frustration about oppression and remaining slaves despite a supposed emancipation, but these two chastise Sleepy Nixon for being too simplistic, only to turn around and launch a plan that’s never been shown to work in our own history of class struggles. Ultimately, all three are doomed, and Sleepy’s fate is just delayed to a lingering death through imprisonment.

I will give the story points for presenting a stemapunk world from the viewpoint of the colonized and oppressed, but it is still a steampunk story, and those trappings end up outshining the characters for me.

I have to give two separate scores rather than grade this as a whole. So the score for I Can Transform You is 4 stars, while Pimp My Airship gets 3 stars. I think both are worth reader’s time, but the second tale is in a genre that doesn’t float my boat, and shouldn’t be taken as a knock to the author.