Autorentext
Sascha Stronach is a Maori author from the Kai Tahu iwi and Kati Huirapa Runaka Ki Puketeraki hapu. She is based in Wellington, New Zealand, and has also spent time in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, which have all inspired parts of the fictional worlds she creates. A former tech writer, she first broke out into speculative fiction by experimenting with the short form. The Dawnhounds, her debut novel, won the Sir Julius Vogel Award at Worldcon 78.

Klappentext

Gideon the Ninth **meets Black Sun in this genre-bending queer fantasy debut inspired by Maori culture, Asian folklore, and sci-fi noir—where murder, resurrection, and rebellion collide on the high seas.**

In the port city of Hainak, everything is alive—its buildings, its weapons, its fashion—thrumming with the pulse of a biotech revolution after a devastating war. All Yat Jyn-Hok wants is peace. Once a thief, now a night-patrolling cop, she’s just trying to stay afloat after a career demotion for “lifestyle choices” and the lingering grief of a vanished lover.

That fragile balance shatters when Yat stumbles on a corpse during her patrol—and is murdered by her own fellow officers to keep it quiet. Dumped into the harbor, she should be gone for good. But an ancient, mysterious power resurrects her, granting her the ability to manipulate life force itself.

Hunted by the police force she once served, Yat finds refuge with a ragtag pirate crew as an insidious plague begins to spread through Hainak. To save the city—and herself—she must confront the corruption at its core and master her new powers before the darkness consuming Hainak swallows them all.

Perfect for fans of The Poppy War, The Dawnhounds is a lush, multicultural fantasy that blends queer romance, gritty mystery, and high-octane adventure.

Zusammenfassung
Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun in Maori author Sascha Stronach's queer fantasy debut about a police officer who is murdered, brought back to life with a mysterious new power, and tasked with preventing an attack on her city.

Leseprobe
Chapter One

ONE
Nobody would meet Yadin’s eye, but that was fine. They didn’t understand what it meant to be a captain, to make hard choices. He paced the deck, hands in the pockets of his coat. He’d kept it on despite the muggy heat, because it made him look the part of captain and because the crew needed to know there was still somebody in charge. He was the captain now: the chain of command was clear. Some of the men weren’t happy about the alchemist being at the helm, but they were scared and emotional. They’d thank him when he brought the ship home. The thrice-cursed coat made him sweat like a pig in a cook pot, though; he’d sell his soul to the birds for a bath filled with fresh ice.

They’d been hearing gull calls for almost a day: home was close, he knew it. They’d been in sight of the city itself before the fog rolled in, its lights like a constellation floating above the inky midnight waters. After two godsdamned years, he’d see his Betej again. (And his child—a son? He didn’t know. They’d set sail before he knew.) He’d kiss her and call her “sugarcane,” then have a nice long bath, then kiss her again, and they’d screw until the bed broke, then he’d have another damn bath. Then he’d put on his clothes, saunter straight through the great wooden gate at Heron Hill, hand in his resignation, have one last bath for good measure (salt, salt, the endless bloody salt… it was in his hair, his eyes, carving little white roads through the lines of his already sweating hands and the chiseled notches of his tattoos, making him itch), then start his own clinic, raise his kid right, and never think about going to sea ever again. Hells, he’d probably think twice about crossing a canal. Maybe move the family inland, to Nahaj Kral or one of the Garden Cities. Betej had always wanted to, but Yadin had worried about one of the old volcanoes blowing its top. This whole mess had left him less afraid of fire—there were worse ways to go.

The waters around Hainak Kuai were usually easy sailing, but the Fantail had suddenly hit a fogbank he hadn’t seen coming, and the strong tailwind had fallen away to nothing. It had come upon them out of nowhere, and the weather wasn’t right for it: too warm. You’d sometimes get whorls of mist over the surface of the water this time of year, but this was something else. It was dense and clinging, which made it hard to see much except shadowy silhouettes of the crew. They’d been in sight of the lighthouse when it came roiling up over the gunnels, but now the light was nowhere to be seen. The smart money was on waiting it out, but there were other concerns.

There was no water left, nor food. Well, that wasn’t quite true: there was water, and there was food, but they were in the hold, and the hold was off-limits. The crew had nailed the hatch shut and piled barrels of grub food atop. A few men had protested, because they hadn’t seen…

It.

They hadn’t seen it. How quickly it had spread. A single broken vial of the stuff. Lots of food down there, of course. The rations, the water, and the…

The ship had set sail from Gostei with twenty men, and there were only nine left. Even with all those double shifts, sleeping no more than four hours a night, they struggled to make the cutter sail true. Exigencies of command: unavoidable, no sin in triage. The expedition’s backers would understand, everybody would get hazard pay, and the crew would thank him for getting them out of a difficult situation in one piece. The admiralty had sent them deep into Suta looking for botanicals with “military applications,” and by that metric, the journey was an unmitigated success. They’d found the vials in an overgrown ferro-tech lab, deep beneath a ruined city of white stone. Ancient electric lights had come on and the screens had spoken to them, but their translator had been less than useless. He was dead now. Well, not dead, but…

A moan came from belowdecks. By Luz of the Field, by Crane of the Sky, by Dorya of the Deep, this was a disaster. He toyed with the worry beads in his pocket.

Elvar, the bosun, shot Yadin an evil glare. Elvar was a big man, with a mop of sandy-blond hair, armor grafts on his forearms, and a mouth full of iron teeth. Northerner, from… well, the North. Geography had never been Yadin’s strong suit. There wasn’t much worth investigating up that way anyway: snow, cannibals, steel cults, engineers. Worthless stuff. The savages didn’t even know alchemy, though they were always trying to crack it. Elvar’s metal teeth’d gone to rust in the salt air, of course, but he didn’t seem to care. He glared at Yadin. His hand wasn’t on his knife yet, but there was something about his poise, pent and coiled like a snake.

Yadin took a step forward. He needed to assert authority, but violence would lead to violence, and the crew could ill afford more casualties. He needed to take a more subtle approach: he tapped his foot on the deck once, twice, then he began to sing. He’d been a choirboy when he was younger, but fear and decades out of practice left his voice stiff and crackling.

The lion prowls the seas,

me lads, his wicked teeth

I know, but I’ve no fear,

I’ve got youse here, so sing

for hell and sing for home.

There was meant to be a call-and-response after each verse: Yeah nah yeah, sweet as, bro. Such a colorful expression: it meant *Yes, no, maybe, we’re brothers, I w…