Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto

I would like to thank Gollancz for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Gollancz

Published – out now

Price – £20 hardcover £11.49 Kindle eBook

HAMMAJANG | adjective. Definition: In a disorderly or chaotic state; messed up. Chiefly in predicative use, esp. in all hammajang. Etymology: A borrowing from Hawaiian Pidgin. Source: Oxford English Dictionary.

Edie is done with crime. Eight years behind bars changes a person - costs them too much time with too many of the people who need them most.

And it's all Angel's fault. She sold Edie out in what should have been the greatest moment of their lives. Instead, Edie was shipped off to the icy prison planet spinning far below the soaring skybridges and neon catacombs of Kepler space station - of home - to spend the best part of a decade alone.

But then a chance for early parole appears out of nowhere and Edie steps into the pallid sunlight to find none other than Angel waiting - and she has an offer.

One last job. One last deal. One last target. The trillionaire tech god they failed to bring down last time. There's just one thing Edie needs to do - trust Angel again - which also happens to be the last thing Edie wants to do. What could possibly go all hammajang about this plan?

I have talked before that I love a good con…in a story! Experts doing the impossible using their skills and often there is a sense the marks deserve what they get. From The Sting to Leverage I love that theatricality, sense of style and stakes plus usually great characters to root for. It is not something I see very often though in science fiction and so when I heard the science fiction novel Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto involves a heist with a gang in the future I could not resist. The good news is that it is so good that I don’t intend for you to resist picking up a copy either.

On the far-off space station world of Keplar Edie is being released from prison after eight years on probation. They are feeling guilty at leaving their sister behind now with a third kid on the way and the eldest suffering from cancer. They cannot get a job at all and appear to be blacklisted after trying to rob the biggest company in the world. Their only option is to accept the offer from a former friend and criminal ally named Angel to join a crew and support a new robbery. The only issue…Angel got Edie behind bars in the first place. Will this end any better this time around?

What comes across massively is how well Yamamoto has a feel for a heist tale and yet creates enough angles of their own that this feels a welcome new addition to the genre. A big part of the novel’s success is how Edie our narrator creates the world for the reader and importantly the key character dynamics that power the book. Edie comes across uniquely as a blue-collar working-class grafter turned thief. Ful of smarts even if not one for the textbooks, hard as nails but also as we find when they meet their family full of love. Edie shares wit the reader all their thoughts, feelings, and fears and while they are a self-confessed criminal we’re pretty much on their side from the start. I really responded to how Edie makes the way people live in Keplar come alive. On the one hand we see a familiar tale of corporate greed, gentrification and a hard way of life getting daily harder. But also, there is a sense of a rich culture and family life bringing light and warmth to the coldest parts of space. Edie and her family carry parts of Hawaiian culture centuries after anyone in her family has seen the ocean. They pull for one another, the tease and the sense of a family shines through. Here they are both Edie’s motivation and biggest fear which adds to the dilemma of should Edie accept Angel’s offer. I too was both invested but also a little afraid myself if this family would be hurt.

In many ways we then have a traditional heist structure as Angel asks Edie to help her gather the team and we meet a succession of interesting characters. We have Cy – Edie’s own friend and a cybernetically enhanced hitter. We meet newbie Sara gymnast turned runner and on top of that the two youngsters in the form of extremely competent thief Tatiana and cyber-hacker extraordinaire and geek Malia. These add an interesting mentor/pupil and surrogate parent dilemma for Edie who at 28 is suddenly finding themselves judged as past it! The teasing and working out of the pecking order in the crew adds a great level of entertainment as we approach the finale. There are also a delightful grifter couple in the form of Duke and Nakano a well-established mature pair of con-women and lovers. As you can see it’s a diverse and queer cast that gels very neatly and then to add another interesting dimension we have Edie acting as second in command to the Mastermind Angel. Angel and Edie’s dynamic is fascinating = old friends who are feeling betrayed, a sense of scorn and yet some clear tension. Are games being played?  For what purpose? To the story’s credit we are kept guessing all the way through, but the romantic tension is very strong we just don’t know until the end if it is deserved. Again, it also means Edie is moving into controlling a situation and ordering people about which is not their comfort zone but for heist fans we see a crew coming together and we pull for them. My biggest niggle is I wanted to know much more about these other characters but if I were to get a whole series exploring them more, I would not be complaining at ALL!

Then we come to the heist and again this is a finely constructed set of escalating steps from simple misdirections, conning lowly marks to increasing levels of danger and as Joyce Atlas is a fascinating intelligent and definitely evil corporate overlord so there are stakes that make us think its not going to be simple and indeed it is not. There are risks, unexpected reveals, dangers and action and it flows with the sense of style and pace I love in a con, no need to micro-explain every move but a book that trusts the reader to follow the action and put the clues together. There is a lovely high stakes actual poker game where Edie and Atlas have to battle egos and a very impressive finale where the team have to plan and improvise in equal measure. Yamamoto adds in science fictional ideas of supercomputers, memory changing devices mixed with engineering shafts and good old grifts to great effect. It feels a vivid and alive world of its own you come away understanding.

This was a hugely satisfying read that knows the heist genre and it comes to life really well. While we get a satisfying conclusion this feels like a series where there are room for more stories and exploring of the wider cast. I would love to see what else Yamamoto has in store for us and clearly an author to keep an eye out for! Highly recommended!