River of Teeth

by Sarah Gailey

Overview

A Finalist for the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella

Sarah Gailey's wildfire debut River of Teeth is a rollicking alternate history adventure that Charlie Jane Anders calls "preposterously fun."

In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true.

Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

This was a terrible plan.

Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo wranglers from around the globe. It is the story of Winslow Houndstooth and his crew. It is the story of their fortunes. It is the story of his revenge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765395238
Publisher:	Tom Doherty Associates
Publication date:	05/23/2017
Series:	River of Teeth , #1
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	189,780
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Hugo and Campbell finalist SARAH GAILEY came onto the scene in 2015 and has since become one of the sharpest, funniest voices in pop culture online. They are a regular contributor for multiple websites, including Tor.com. Their nonfiction has appeared in Mashable and The Boston Globe, and their fiction has been published internationally. They have a novel forthcoming from Tor Books in Spring 2019. They live in Portland, Oregon.

Editorial Reviews

"Man-eating hippo mayhem is my new favorite mayhem. Gailey's debut is a gift of violent, unexpected glee and I can't wait for more capers with Winslow Houndstooth and Ruby the stealth hippo." —Kevin Hearne, New York Times bestselling author

"This hippopotamus epic is just as preposterously fun as you could possibly have hoped — but it's also a brave, clever alternate history. River of Teeth packs one hell of a gold-plated bite." —Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky

“Weird and wonderful, River of Teeth proves handily why Sarah Gailey is a writer to watch.” —Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Aftermath and Invasive

"Blisteringly imaginative, and written with a sly, sharp wit." —Kate Elliott

"A rowdy, rollicking river ride from a sly and whimsical new writer. A damned fine adventure for everyone. And I haven't even mentioned the hippos yet. Get reading." —Kameron Hurley, Hugo Award-winning author of Mirror Empire and The Geek Feminist Revolution

"River of Teeth is a wonderfully original debut." —NPR

"Fun and charming with killer hippos and even better characters." —Kirkus Reviews

"Fans of seedy westerns will greatly enjoy this tale of gold-tusked hippos and the miscreants who ride them." —Publishers Weekly

"This is a thing I now know about Sarah Gailey: she is a word-magician who can render searing touch on a flat page and suspend disbelief flawlessly. The world of River of Teeth feels vast, and navigable due to her skill. The characters within, deep and yet intimately knowable." —Fran Wilde, Nebula-nominated, Andre Norton- and Compton Crook-winning author of Updraft and Cloudbound

"I love Sarah Gailey's River of Teeth. It is sexy and raucous and wild and beautiful and violent—aka, everything I've ever wanted from a lawless caper through the American West. Gailey's storytelling is clever and top-notch, and River of Teeth will leave you with adrenaline humming through your veins. I can't recommend this highly enough." —Alyssa Wong, Nebula Award-winning author of "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers"

From the Publisher

05/15/2017
Winslow Houndstooth is assembling a crack team made up of a sharpshooter, a con woman, a demolitions expert, and an assassin. But don't call it a caper he's plotting; he's running a legitimate operation, employed by the federal government, to take care of a wild hippo problem in southern Louisiana. It seems that in this alternate version of late 19th-century U.S. history, the government imported hippos to America to use as a food source. Ranchers raised them, riding some of the smarter breeds like horses. But an unscrupulous riverboat entrepreneur named Travers has allowed hundreds of feral hippos to threaten commerce on the Mississippi. Houndstooth has a job to do, and some scores to settle, but his crew all have their own agendas as well. VERDICT First-time novelist Gailey assures us that her premise for this novella, bizarre as it seems, was really contemplated by Congress. Along with her swift-moving plot, she includes a sweet romance between Houndstooth and his gender-ambiguous demo expert Hero. Readers will wish they had their very own hippo to ride around the bayou.—MM

Library Journal

03/13/2017
Gailey’s debut novella is as intricate as her scheming characters’ plotting. In this alternate late 19th century, imported hippos have taken over the Harriet area (“not quite a lake and not quite a marsh”) of the Mississippi River. Right now the area is used for riverboat gambling, but the government wants to open it as a trade route down to the Gulf of Mexico, so former hippo breeder Winslow Houndstooth is hired to herd the feral animals into the gulf. After assembling a team gathered from the highest echelons of western novel archetypes—with some modern twists, including a genderless demolitions expert and a heavily pregnant assassin—Houndstooth develops a plan that will satisfy the requirements of the job and allow him to take revenge on the people who burned down his ranch 10 years before. The tight pace, complex relationships, and twisting motivations of the characters keep the reader engaged, and the alternate history of American hippo farming is clearly illustrated without clumsy exposition. Fans of seedy westerns will greatly enjoy this tale of gold-tusked hippos and the miscreants who ride them. (May)

Publishers Weekly