NYX: MALACHE by Tyree Campbell

In Nyx, Tyree Campbell seems to have found the heart of science fiction, and delivers a story that remains true to the genre. Nyx is a secret agent working for a covert organisation. She’s a ballsy and intelligent assassin, as brutal as she is cunning. The story takes shape on a planet called Malache, amidst the native Malasy, a race of lemuroids. Nyx’s mission is simple: stop the transfer of classified information by killing the courier. But when she kills the wrong person, she’s sent back to finish the job properly, and it’s here all her problems begin.

There are enough fights, chases, and explosions in Nyx to slake the thirst of any lover of high-octane SF. Campbell successfully draws the reader into the protagonist’s lifestyle, and gives us an insight into how cold the assassin’s blood runs. There’s a sense that Nyx has survived for so long because she’s damned good at what she does. She realises her shelf life has a sell-by date that will expire the moment she lets her guard down.

In the first half of the book, Nyx’s uncompromising nature is drawn with stark clarity, and Campbell doesn’t mince words explaining just how ruthless his protagonist is. Every other character involved with Nyx, is either a liability or a useful tool. But when Nyx’s sensibilities change, it’s done in a subtle way that creeps up on you, and is both surprising and logical. And the catalyst for her change is Malache’s indigenous race, the Malasy.

These lemuroid creatures are a complicated lot, plagued on their home world by poachers who covet their pelts. Campbell often describes the Malasy through the colour of their fur and eyes, and this use of colours and textures adds a great otherness to the lemuroids, and helps to underline just how alien from humans they are. But most surprisingly, Campbell gives the Malasy a complicated system of sexuality, and in turn they help Nyx rediscover hers.

Sex for Nyx has become just another weapon in her armoury, something she’s emotionally detached from. With the help of the Malasy, Nyx’s long lost femininity is reawakened. Still, Nyx remains deadly from start to finish. She even finds time to use her ‘reawakening’ in a superb event that will have every man on the planet crossing his legs and wincing. But the problem it does give Nyx, is she begins to care about the Malasy, and ‘caring’ is not something her profession forgives easily.

Nyx is a bloody good science fiction story.