Simplified Series - Ack-Ack Macaque

Eat yer heart out cover artist for Gordon R. Dickson's The Right to Arm Bears!

My feverish pursuit of MOAR content brought forth this feature: Simplified Series. Here's the pitch: quick synopses (I'll try and keep them spoiler-free, but, you know, most of these are past the statute of limitations on spoilers) of the entries in a series followed by the reasons you should or shouldn't read it. This week:

The Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy by Gareth L. Powell

Background Info: So, you may recall that in 2013 Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie won the British Science Fiction Award (and several others) for Best Novel. It was actually a tie that year. The other winner was Gareth L. Powell's Ack-Ack Macaque. As one might expect, Ack-Ack Macaque is very different from Ancillary Justice, you may have guessed from the titles and cover art that this series has a more humorous bent than the Imperial Radch trilogy (though I will say that Ann Leckie's books do have plenty of humor in them). Set in a world where France (along several other European countries) has joined the United Kingdom following World War II. These books follow the titular primate as he helps uncover conspiracies, takes names, travels across dimensions, kicks ass, and of course, chomps cigars and flies airplanes. So without further ado:

Ack-Ack Macaque (2012): Let me just say this, the first couple chapters of this book will have you screaming: SHOW ME THE MONKEY! I mean, if you buy a book called Ack-Ack Macaque with that picture on the cover you have certain expectations about the amount of monkey-centric content contained therein. Anyway, it's the not too distant future and a mysterious assassin has just murdered reporter Victoria Valois' ex-husband Paul. Don't worry, Paul had a sort of neural blackbox which preserved his consciousness. Even better, the gel-ware installed in Victoria's head following a helicopter accident means she can take Paul's back-up with her when she boards her godfather's airship looking for revenge! SHOW ME THE MONKEY! You scream impatiently. We're getting there. King William V of the United Kingdom has been assassinated, leaving Prince Merovech to take the throne. But the Prince is suddenly kidnapped by his girlfriend, Julie. Does it have anything to do with the gel-ware that was installed in his brain after the same helicopter crash that injured Victoria Valois? SHOW ME THE MONKEY! You screech whilst preparing to hurl feces at me. Okay, so Ack-Ack Macaque is the star attraction of an eponymous WWII aerial combat simulator. Apparently an AI so advanced, no one has ever succeeded in shooting him down or besting him in single combat. And what with the horrors of war going on around him and leaving him untouched, he's suffering from a not insignificant degree of existential malaise. But a group of dissidents, including Julie, and also a precocious teen hacker, K8 (just roll with it), think there might be something suspicious at Céleste Tech, the company that makes both the game and the gel-ware in Victoria and Merovech's brains, a company owned by the new Queen Mother of the UK. Is the easiest way to put an unbeatable fighting monkey in your video game to install advanced computer hardware in the brain of  an actual live monkey and hook said monkey up to a server? Will you ever encounter the titular monkey in the outfit depicted on the cover? Is the obvious villain the villain?

Hive Monkey (2014): Well, following the climactic events at the end of Ack-Ack Macaque the gang's all here. Well, except Merovech and Julie, they're really busy what with Merovech being a king and everything. So everyone else is on the airship Tereshkova, now captained by Victoria and piloted by Ack-Ack Macaque. Things are going pretty well, until a passenger named William Cole (who has recently survived a murder attempt by what it later revealed to be a cadre of Neanderthal assassins) encounters his double from a parallel universe. Uh-oh, looks like this won't be  an uncomplicated pleasure cruise after all. Oh, and just to ratchet things up a little, it seems like this is all connected to the sinister Gestalt cult whose members wear all white and have joined together in a creepy hive-mind. So yeah, just your normal talking monkey, parallel universe, cautionary tech fable sci-fi adventure novel. Will our titular hero ever resolve his mind-wracking anguish over being the only one of this kind? Is the multiverse reveal going to lead to an even bigger reveal when our heroes go up against the cult? Why did Ack-Ack Macaque's eyepatch move from his left eye to his right on the cover for this book and then back to his left on the cover for the next?

Macaque Attack (2015): So, following the climactic events that concluded Hive Monkey our heroes are in a bit of a pickle. On the one hand, they've been hopping between universes liberating primates who've had their brains packed with computer hardware not unlike Ack-Ack Macaque himself. On the other hand, K8 is still struggling with the side effects of (spoilers) being removed from the cult hive-mind and Paul's back-up drive is finally starting to deteriorate because it's been left on too long (for reference, the back-up is only meant to be used to clarify the circumstances of a person's death, like a black-box, not as a way to remain in communication with that person after their death). Also, they're still holding the villain from Hive Monkey hostage until they can figure out what to do with her. So things are getting a little complicated. Oh, and speaking of back-ups, Merovech (who is now, you may recall, the King of the UK) has just received some troubling news, not only did his mother have a back-up of her own consciousness, he's just received a communique from her and its signal originates on Mars!  Just to recap: we've got a horde of intelligent apes and monkeys gallivanting across universes on a nuclear-powered airship, a bunch of people running around with computer hardware in their heads, and we're adding to that cyber-ghosts on Mars. Can our intrepid band of ascended primates save the world(s) once again? Can anything be done to save Paul? Will Powell stick the landing and bring together the various divergent plot and thematic elements from a trilogy whose guiding principle seems to be that everything and the kitchen sink is just a jumping off point? 

Why should you read the Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy? I mean, I think you can tell. This series is more fun than a barrel of – well, you know. Powell also manages to play with a lot of fun sci-fi concepts here. He's definitely not the first writer to get to any of these ideas, but I do admire his ambition in trying to cram so many of them into a single series. They're funny and exciting, and even better, each one ends in a manner that feels like a conclusion. That is to say that each tells a mostly complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, with a little wiggle room left for the story to continue. I honestly had no idea that Ack-Ack Macaque would be the first book in a series, and I didn't realize that another book was coming when I finished Hive Monkey, and I'm not upset that he wrote more at all, I just would have accepted it if the story had ended after either of the first two.

Why shouldn't you read the Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy? Well, it is a bit much. If any of this sounds like it's not your thing, I wouldn't blame you for steering clear of these.  And, I'll be honest, I wasn't satisfied by the ending of Macaque Attack, but it would be hard, with all those plot plates spinning for Powell to pull off a series long conclusion (especially after I said that each entry could work as a satisfying conclusion in its own right). Anyway, if you aren't looking for a pulpy sci-fi adventure story about a foul-mouthed, one-eyed, gut-toting, cigar-chomping, computer-enhanced monkey, then you probably shouldn't read the Ack-Ack Macaque books.

Links:

Gareth L. Powell's website, if you're into that kinda thing.