DNF Early Review – Green City Wars by Adrian Tachaikovsky (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction/Mystery
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: June 23, 2026
ASIN: B0FMS9W445
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“In the solar cities of the future, the humans relax in the sun and the animals work in the shadows. Genetically engineered Little Helpers, serving humanity—unseen, unheard.

Meet Skotch. Raccoon, PI—yours for a few buttons as long as the job isn’t too illegal, whatever that means.

A mouse has gone missing. Normally this wouldn’t raise any hackles, nor any alarms, but this mouse has something that everyone seems to want, though nobody appears particularly eager to say what that something is.

The fee is good—perhaps too good. Certainly not something Skotch can easily turn down.

If only Skotch can work out where the mouse is hiding, what he’s hiding, and why his secrets are upsetting a lot of animals caught up in the Green City wars.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this on ebook from NetGalley.com.

Thoughts: I have read four other Tchaikovsky novels prior to reading this one, and he’s been a bit hit or miss for me. I absolutely loved “Service Model”, I also really enjoyed “Alien Clay” and “Children of Time”. However, “Shroud” was a bit of a miss for me.

“Green City Wars” was pretty different from all the above and was definitely a miss for me. I ended up putting it down at 20% of the way in. This book focuses on world-building and less on the story or characters. There is a lot of exposition in the first 20% of this book, and I kept loosing track of the story because of all the complex world-building and background we are told.

The story follows Skotch, a genetically altered raccoon, who is dependent on the drugs provided to sentient animals in order keep his wits and intelligence in working order. He is trying to freelance and escape the company that made him, but gets pulled back into the fold to lead an investigation looking for a mouse in the war zone. In this world, sentient animals support the labor required for human comfort and are dependent on the drugs provided to them to keep their mental capacities.

I liked the creative premise of an animal dystopia supporting human survival in the future. This is an intriguing idea and a thought-provoking premise. However, this is set-up to be more of a gum-shoe, detective type of story, and the complex explanations of the background kept getting in the way of the story.

I also wasn’t drawn to our main protagonist, Skotch. At least in the first part of the book, he bent to the whims of his maker and was very hard to engage with or relate to. We meet a lot of characters very quickly, and they seem to be more background than important parts of the story. The writing in general, was fairly dense and didn’t have anything to really engage and pull the reader through it.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this wasn’t for me. The idea is intriguing, but the world-building overshadowed any story plot or character development. If you enjoy exposition-heavy stories about complex world-building, you might enjoy this. If you were picking this up for an engaging mystery or intriguing characters, I would look elsewhere. Giving this three stars because I stopped reading it 20% in and there is always the chance it redeemed itself later on in the book.