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Petrogypsies
This critically-acclaimed science fiction adventure novel is set in an alternate universe in which organic, semi-sentient, alien-engineered oilfield drilling rigs roam the plains of Texas and the Southwest in search of petroleum.
Petrogypsies is the first in Harper's series about the great drilling beast, Sprocket, his best friend, former farmer Henry Lee MacFarland, and the rowdy, musical crew of "petrogypsies" who travel with them in their quest for fortune, romance, and adventure.
For Sprocket and Henry Lee,
it was love at first blow-out ...
Henry Lee MacFarland is a big ugly man, a farmer who is so strong that he has to be gentle, whether he's dealing with livestock or with normal people.
Sprocket is a hundred and twelve feet of healthy young male Driller, dark as a moonless night, with a spiked tongue that can bore four miles into the earth in his relentless quest for the thing he loves best--Texas heavy crude oil.
Doc, Razer, Big Mac, and the others in Sprocket's crew are the roughest, rowdiest bunch in the oilpatch. They live inside of Sprocket's body and travel like gypsies from one drilling job to another. They work like animals. Party like 'em, too.
Then there's Star, the stunning Casing gypsy who has a hankering for fine cigars, a killer instinct at poker, and a taste for big, ugly, strong men.
Looking for adventure, Henry Lee leaves the farm behind and signs on with Sprocket's crew.
He gets a helluva lot more "adventure"--as in monsters, mayhem, and murder--than he bargained for.
"Rory Harper's sensibility is warm, earthy, whimsical, cleverly off-center, and, when he wants it to be, bawdy as all get out ... Petrogypsies is a blue-collar, red-neck world where folks sweat and love and work and get hurt ... Petrogypsies has got to be one of the most auspicious debuts of the year." - Locus Magazine
Petrogypsies is the first in Harper's series about the great drilling beast, Sprocket, his best friend, former farmer Henry Lee MacFarland, and the rowdy, musical crew of "petrogypsies" who travel with them in their quest for fortune, romance, and adventure.
For Sprocket and Henry Lee,
it was love at first blow-out ...
Henry Lee MacFarland is a big ugly man, a farmer who is so strong that he has to be gentle, whether he's dealing with livestock or with normal people.
Sprocket is a hundred and twelve feet of healthy young male Driller, dark as a moonless night, with a spiked tongue that can bore four miles into the earth in his relentless quest for the thing he loves best--Texas heavy crude oil.
Doc, Razer, Big Mac, and the others in Sprocket's crew are the roughest, rowdiest bunch in the oilpatch. They live inside of Sprocket's body and travel like gypsies from one drilling job to another. They work like animals. Party like 'em, too.
Then there's Star, the stunning Casing gypsy who has a hankering for fine cigars, a killer instinct at poker, and a taste for big, ugly, strong men.
Looking for adventure, Henry Lee leaves the farm behind and signs on with Sprocket's crew.
He gets a helluva lot more "adventure"--as in monsters, mayhem, and murder--than he bargained for.
"Rory Harper's sensibility is warm, earthy, whimsical, cleverly off-center, and, when he wants it to be, bawdy as all get out ... Petrogypsies is a blue-collar, red-neck world where folks sweat and love and work and get hurt ... Petrogypsies has got to be one of the most auspicious debuts of the year." - Locus Magazine
- GenresScience FictionFiction
200 pages, Perfect Paperback
First published September 1, 1989
1 person is currently reading
43 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 17, 2012
Write what you know... OK, Harper knows music and the oil business; and I think he loves classic space opera. He's written a space opera, at any rate, and a pretty good one at that. But not in space. He's set it in the oil patch and instead of spaceships, he's got his rollicking characters living inside an oil-drilling alien. The story reminds me of a Heinlein juvenile, in a good way, and anyone with a soft-spot for Texas A&M is going to going to feel it's homecoming weekend.
October 27, 2010
I won this book through Goodreads First Reads program with the following odds: 15 copies available, 747 people requesting. I just received the copy and looking forward to reading it.
I started reading this a while ago, and forgot to update. It's a little unusual, unlike what I generally read. But it's interesting. I'm on page 25.
By the way, since it took me a while to figure out what the title was all about - Petrogypsy apparently means petroleum gypsy. I'm enjoying the story so far. Sometimes it gets really technical so that I read the details about how the oil rigs work, but I don't understand them. Sort of gives an interesting perspective about how hard this drilling thing is -- made me think of the disaster with the oil spill in the Gulf; I didn't understand why they couldn't fix it for this long... Not that I understand now, but from this book I see that it's not an easy thing.
Anyway I'm mostly ignoring the technical details, and the story itself is neat. Oh, it appears that each little chapter in the book (other than the short in-betweens) is a separate short story about these characters with its own climax and all. I guess that's what some of the reviews were referring to a climax in the middle of the book. You just have to be prepared that they are sort of three separate stories rather than a single story with a unified plotline. They are only loosely connected with these 1-2 pages of in-between sections, telling you what's happened since the last adventure. The last of the stories dealt a lot less with the oil rigs, and more with the relationships. Based on the title, though I expected to see the characters actually studying -- but the events there take place about two weeks before the start of the semester.
I started reading this a while ago, and forgot to update. It's a little unusual, unlike what I generally read. But it's interesting. I'm on page 25.
By the way, since it took me a while to figure out what the title was all about - Petrogypsy apparently means petroleum gypsy. I'm enjoying the story so far. Sometimes it gets really technical so that I read the details about how the oil rigs work, but I don't understand them. Sort of gives an interesting perspective about how hard this drilling thing is -- made me think of the disaster with the oil spill in the Gulf; I didn't understand why they couldn't fix it for this long... Not that I understand now, but from this book I see that it's not an easy thing.
Anyway I'm mostly ignoring the technical details, and the story itself is neat. Oh, it appears that each little chapter in the book (other than the short in-betweens) is a separate short story about these characters with its own climax and all. I guess that's what some of the reviews were referring to a climax in the middle of the book. You just have to be prepared that they are sort of three separate stories rather than a single story with a unified plotline. They are only loosely connected with these 1-2 pages of in-between sections, telling you what's happened since the last adventure. The last of the stories dealt a lot less with the oil rigs, and more with the relationships. Based on the title, though I expected to see the characters actually studying -- but the events there take place about two weeks before the start of the semester.
July 13, 2010
When I began reading Petrogypsies, I was more than a little confused. I couldn't quite get my mind around the fact that the Drillers were living creatures rather than machines. The details about the drilling process were distracting and filled with sexual overtones. If I had not gotten this book as part of Goodreads First Reads, I would not have bothered finishing it.
That being said, Henry Lee MacFarland is really quite an endearing character and one can't help but root for him as the story unfolds. When he becomes enamored with gypsy life during the drilling on his family's land, you can't help but hope he'll leave with them when the time comes. When he meets Star and manages to mess things up due to his inexperience, you can't help but hope she'll give him another chance. Henry manages to make his way through the initiation of gypsy life and becomes an integral part of Sprocket's team. The story does pick up with the murder of Pegleg and when Billy Bob starts to make trouble, but it always seems to get sidetracked by extraneous drill-talk. Perhaps, there are many readers who would be intrigued by such details. For me, they just detracted from the story.
That being said, Henry Lee MacFarland is really quite an endearing character and one can't help but root for him as the story unfolds. When he becomes enamored with gypsy life during the drilling on his family's land, you can't help but hope he'll leave with them when the time comes. When he meets Star and manages to mess things up due to his inexperience, you can't help but hope she'll give him another chance. Henry manages to make his way through the initiation of gypsy life and becomes an integral part of Sprocket's team. The story does pick up with the murder of Pegleg and when Billy Bob starts to make trouble, but it always seems to get sidetracked by extraneous drill-talk. Perhaps, there are many readers who would be intrigued by such details. For me, they just detracted from the story.
March 16, 2018
This was a delightful tale—well, three tales, really—which highlights a genre of science-fiction you don't see much any more: A fairly wild "what-if" scenario that's given a technically rigorous treatment.
Science-fantasy is more common than real science-fiction these days, with the former just being "magic but with spaceships and lasers". Or as one of my kids says "Science-fiction just lies to you and says this could happen where fantasy is telling you straight-up that it's magic." So, it's sort of refreshing to see a situation like this ("What if, in the 19th century, aliens dropped animals on Earth that were genetically engineered to drill oil wells?") which is buttressed at every point with accurate (or accurate sounding) technical details about how such a thing would actually work—and then base the story around a subculture that might evolve around such animals. Hence: Petrogypsies.
The book concerns a farm boy, Henry Lee, who is seduced away from the drudgery of dirt farming to tend a driller, a very large animal with a talent for knowing where oil is and a tongue that can dig through earth, and his rapport with the animal itself, named Sprocket. The three tales told herein are:
1) Henry Lee learning the ropes and coming up against unethical opposing agents.
2) Taking the animals out to sea (for oil platform-style drilling).
3) Petrogypsies go to college! (OK, it sounds silly but it makes sense in context.)
It's a fun read. You like the characters, even if they don't seem especially deep, and you really come to like the animals, which are in a lot of ways like horses, fitting the kind of western-y feel of the whole thing.
Though the book was written in 1989, it's set in 1963, which may be because that was the year the modern oil platform was developed, or it may be because it gives the author an excuse to introduce certain kinds of music and its performers—they're gypsies, after all, music plays a huge role here—as well as avoid some of the knottier consequences of the cultural revolution.
I liked that aspect of it as well, although the character developments in the last story seemed a lot less '63 and more '89. It's a quibble, and one we can write off as being an artifact of gypsy life.
Definitely nice to have a story from that era not bogged down with cyberpunk and megadystopia and so on.
Science-fantasy is more common than real science-fiction these days, with the former just being "magic but with spaceships and lasers". Or as one of my kids says "Science-fiction just lies to you and says this could happen where fantasy is telling you straight-up that it's magic." So, it's sort of refreshing to see a situation like this ("What if, in the 19th century, aliens dropped animals on Earth that were genetically engineered to drill oil wells?") which is buttressed at every point with accurate (or accurate sounding) technical details about how such a thing would actually work—and then base the story around a subculture that might evolve around such animals. Hence: Petrogypsies.
The book concerns a farm boy, Henry Lee, who is seduced away from the drudgery of dirt farming to tend a driller, a very large animal with a talent for knowing where oil is and a tongue that can dig through earth, and his rapport with the animal itself, named Sprocket. The three tales told herein are:
1) Henry Lee learning the ropes and coming up against unethical opposing agents.
2) Taking the animals out to sea (for oil platform-style drilling).
3) Petrogypsies go to college! (OK, it sounds silly but it makes sense in context.)
It's a fun read. You like the characters, even if they don't seem especially deep, and you really come to like the animals, which are in a lot of ways like horses, fitting the kind of western-y feel of the whole thing.
Though the book was written in 1989, it's set in 1963, which may be because that was the year the modern oil platform was developed, or it may be because it gives the author an excuse to introduce certain kinds of music and its performers—they're gypsies, after all, music plays a huge role here—as well as avoid some of the knottier consequences of the cultural revolution.
I liked that aspect of it as well, although the character developments in the last story seemed a lot less '63 and more '89. It's a quibble, and one we can write off as being an artifact of gypsy life.
Definitely nice to have a story from that era not bogged down with cyberpunk and megadystopia and so on.
May 19, 2011
Petrogypsies by Rory Harper is an amazing read. Get yourself a copy as soon as possible. This awesome book is an alternate history-type, set in Texas and featuring alien-created animals who exist solely to drill for oil. Henry Lee is a rough, ugly, good-hearted kid from a dirt farm in the middle of nowhere who gets to meet one of the enormous drillers, known as Sprocket, and his team of human helpers. Since they travel around, wherever the work leads them, these men and women are known as gypsies; since their business is oil, they are petrogypsies.
Told from Henry Lee's view point, the style is down-to-earth and genial. Being a naturalized citizen of the great state of Texas, I can truly appreciate the accent and speech pattern that Henry Lee has, and his outlook on life is very realistic to anyone who's lived in the country. The Sprocket team has many adventures, from impossible drills to women to murder to mayhem, and you don't want to miss a single one.
Told from Henry Lee's view point, the style is down-to-earth and genial. Being a naturalized citizen of the great state of Texas, I can truly appreciate the accent and speech pattern that Henry Lee has, and his outlook on life is very realistic to anyone who's lived in the country. The Sprocket team has many adventures, from impossible drills to women to murder to mayhem, and you don't want to miss a single one.
April 27, 2011
Like several of the other reviewers, I got this book for free, handed to me at a convention from one of the publisher-dudes. The cover makes it look like a bad graphic novel, the back blurb kinda makes it sound like a strange romance novel, the first bit with the drillers alternately grossed me out and made me feel like I was reading a ridiculously complex sex joke (there was more talk of sphincters, warts, tongues, and foreskin than anything I ever expected to read), but once you got in past the first chapter this book was overall quirky and enjoyable. If the opportunity crosses your path, it'd be a shame not to read it. I'm strongly considering buying the second one (which says something, 'cause I don't buy books)
July 15, 2010
Goodreads is sent this one to me because I won a First Reads give-away. A little hard to get into, but after getting into it I enjoyed the story. In the first part of the book I had to read a few parts a couple of times because of the style of writing. He wrote parts of the book like the main character was talking or thinking and not grammatically correct. Two thirds into the book I thought the story was going to be finished because it seemed to come to a climax, but the last third of the book still kept me interested and came to a nice conclusion. The characters were interesting enough for me to consider reading the next one.
August 24, 2010
I am not a fantasy/sci fi type person but felt I should read the book that was sent to me by Goodreads a try. I thought the book overall was "ok". There were many parts that took me directions I didn't expect and I enjoyed that. Someone had mentioned in another review that they story seemed to wrap up earlier than it really did, I would have to agree. It was nice to see how it finished but there was a period that I had to struggle through to see what would happen and how it would wrap. Thanks for giving me a try at Goodreads, not a book I would have picked off the shelf.
July 8, 2010
I enjoyed this book -- a fun read. The book is set in an alternate world where drilling for oil is done by living creatures that were bred /created for the purpose. Timely, no? The characters are engaging and the story line is fun. I found myself wanting to return to this alternate reality and learn more.
August 9, 2025
Very readable for being as niche as it is. If you're familiar with the setting you're going to have fun with it; if you've been to the town that it's talking about and interacted with Corps kids you are going to be nodding in agreement at some scenes.
July 20, 2010
I'm pretty sure I'm not the target audience for this book. The short review is I might have picked the book up at the library if I'd seen it there, but I wouldn't have bought it and I wouldn't have finished it if I hadn't received it free through First Reads.
The writing reminded me a bit of Heinlein's juvenile fiction, some of which I had to grit my teeth to read. (Overall, I'm a big fan of Heinlein, but I have trouble getting through the sexism in some of his stuff.)
What I liked:
---It's a cool concept that there are these living creatures, guided by humans of course, who each take a role in getting the oil out of the ground and processed from crude to something usable. All different types of the creatures are needed to do it successfully, and they travel around with their human crews as a kind of gypsy.
Things I didn't like:
---The use of vernacular dialogue that made farmers and those in rural areas sound like ignorant hicks. Some authors can do dialects very well in their books but most can't.
---The sex was apparently written with adolescent boys in mind. I'm sure some of them very much enjoyed this book. But I'm female and well beyond adolescence, and ... ugh, it's not that I'm a prude or don't want to read about sex. But it wasn't erotic and sexy, it just made me roll my eyes.
A big thanks to the GoodReads folks who chose me as one of the First Reads recipients! I may not have loved the book, but I did love participating in the system.
The writing reminded me a bit of Heinlein's juvenile fiction, some of which I had to grit my teeth to read. (Overall, I'm a big fan of Heinlein, but I have trouble getting through the sexism in some of his stuff.)
What I liked:
---It's a cool concept that there are these living creatures, guided by humans of course, who each take a role in getting the oil out of the ground and processed from crude to something usable. All different types of the creatures are needed to do it successfully, and they travel around with their human crews as a kind of gypsy.
Things I didn't like:
---The use of vernacular dialogue that made farmers and those in rural areas sound like ignorant hicks. Some authors can do dialects very well in their books but most can't.
---The sex was apparently written with adolescent boys in mind. I'm sure some of them very much enjoyed this book. But I'm female and well beyond adolescence, and ... ugh, it's not that I'm a prude or don't want to read about sex. But it wasn't erotic and sexy, it just made me roll my eyes.
A big thanks to the GoodReads folks who chose me as one of the First Reads recipients! I may not have loved the book, but I did love participating in the system.
August 4, 2010
I didn't actually finish this book, which makes me a little bit sad. I thought it was a very interesting concept and when I started reading I enjoyed the voice it was written in. Fun, slightly amusing, and original. Unfortunately my attention began to wane fairly early as I began to feel like the story was more about 'This is how oil rigs work' and less about the characters and the plot. That impression never left me, and is actually what caused me to set the book down. However, if you like details and are curious or interested in how wells/rigs work you may well enjoy this book more than I.
May 6, 2014
A unique sci fi novel with a distinctly Texas twist. Written by an old friend of mine but a book I would recommend anyway. A real fun read!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews