Where Olgo's Fighting for the Workers This Time

COLD RISING: A Cold Rush Novella by Rohan O'Duill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a smart, brisk novel set in a realistic but gritty future, most of it taking place deep in the mines and awkward workplaces of Mars. It's dark in bits but not too dark. I liked it.

Olgo and his fellow agents are fixers for a giant corporation out of Geneva, and though they have leave to be brutal (and even have their emotions suppressed because of the pain of some unspecified trauma), Olgo is still compassionate and sympathetic. As direct representatives of the company's owners, they (Olgo and his assistants) travel to Mars to oversee compliance with worker protections--something that is clearly not being taken seriously to that point.

The story of twelve-year-old Suong, a worker in a deep pit of Mars, shows the horrors of life for millions of people. The conditions reminded me of workers in Red Rising or The Expanse, though the world-building is unique and rolled out to the reader in a nicely organic way. (There are some resemblances to Murderbot as well, in both story elements and reading time.) The arrival of Olgo and the other agents gives people hope, igniting a storm of demonstrations by the workers and violence in response. Suong survives a riot, and along with Olgo has to find a way to fight back against the uncooperative companies on Mars.

The story reads briskly with good pace from the start, though I found the action and plot of the second half the most engaging. The author does a good job of keeping it human, especially with the evolution of Olgo as a person. The value of individuals specifically and humanity in general is a nice theme worked throughout the story, and it makes a bright contrast to the darkness of the setting.

I enjoyed the novella and look forward to other stories by the author.

(I received an ARC of the novella in return for an honest review.)

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