Harare Review of Books

411 pp. September 16, 2025, Alex Parker Publishing. Sci-fi.

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This won’t be the first sci-fi x Western you’ll have encountered, and it doesn’t even pretend to be original. The ship of the initially unnamed protagonist (who eventually goes by Gus, the name she’s given by a robot with a specific kind of dysphasia) is horseshoe-shaped. Gus is a ‘beamslinger.’ The robot—or rob, to use the terminology of the book—that rescues Gus when she’s in a spot of trouble is out rounding up a stray greenbottle jelly calf (as far as I can tell, that’s a domesticated animal that grazes in the clouds of this gas giant) with his lasso. There’s a lawman, and a businessman he’s indebted to who’s the novel’s bad guy and who has two really bad sons. And yes, this here’s a frontier town and everything.

But Gas Giant Gambit is quite special: The world the author’s built is really very charming, and it’s cool to see all of the ways a western can be reimagined as sci-fi, or vice versa (I don’t remember enough about Firefly to find any of this derivative, but it didn’t feel like it was). And also, there’s a lot of very cool action, with ‘splosions and lasers and all kinds of things. A genuine standoff! And also, the novel’s reluctant hero’s reluctance is very persuasive. And then all of it ends on a heart-warming note. Wonderful.

So, yes, mostly unreservedly recommend because it’s a rollicking read, so rich in its worldbuilding and descriptions that I feel like I’ve been to Las Ráfagas. I did feel uncomfortable with the treatment of things like facial disfigurement and similar, something I’m hyperaware of now every time I read sci-fi especially (I recommend Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space x Amanda Leduc on this); otherwise, the rest of my niggles are over pretty minor stuff. So, yes, read—particularly if you like this genre, but also if you love a really good—rollicking—story, which this is.

Thanks to Alex Parker Publishing and NetGalley for DRC access.

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