Part alien invasion story, part buddy comedy, and part workplace satire
Would humans really make great pets?
Humans must be silent. Humans must be obedient. Humans must be good.
All his life, John has tried to live by those rules. Most days, it’s not too difficult. A hundred and twenty years after The Fall, and a hundred years after the grays swept in to pick the last dregs of humanity out of the wreckage of a ruined world, John has found himself bonded to Martok Barden nee Black Hand, one of the "good" grays. Sure, Martok is broke, homeless, and borderline manic, but he’s always treated John like an actual person, and sometimes like a friend. It’s a better deal than most humans get.
But when Martok puts John’s bond up as collateral against an abandoned house in the woods that he hopes to turn into a wilderness retreat for wealthy grays, John learns that there are limits to Martok’s friendship. Soon he finds himself caught between an underworld boss who thinks Martok is something that he very much is not, a girl who was raised by feral humans and has nothing but contempt for pets like John, and Martok himself, whose delusions of grandeur seem to be finally catching up with him.
Also, not for nothing, something in the woods has been killing people.
John has sixty days before Martok’s loan comes due to unravel the mystery of how humans wound up holding the wrong end of the domestication stick and find a way to turn Martok’s half-baked plans into profit enough to buy back his life, all while avoiding getting butchered by feral humans or having his head crushed by an angry gray. Easy peasy, right?

My Review:

I think I’ve read everything this author has published from Mickey7 onwards, and they’ve all been fascinating in their very different ways. But taken as a whole, these works have one fantastic thing in common – in the end, they don’t go to any of the places that the reader thinks they will at the beginning.

I lied. They all have a second thing in common as well, and it’s that they do not tell their stories from a position of human superiority. From a human perspective, yes, but in situations and worlds where humans are not superior – even if they think they are.

John has no pretensions to superiority. Also no last name, surname or designation of clan affiliation. Because in this future Earth, he’s nothing and nobody. He’s not even a person – he’s just a bondsman. He’s not even property. He’s just a pet.

John’s world is Earth, as the title suggests, after the fall. After both some kind of apocalypse AND after the invasion of an alien species who claims to have ‘saved’ the few human survivors from the consequences of their own destructive natures. And have then done their level best to breed those destructive tendencies out of the descendants of those who were left.

The ‘Grays’ saw the humans as wolves, and they bred us down to dogs. Then treated humans worse than the previously dominant humans treated their own pets. And set up the rules so that their bondsmen can be killed even more capriciously, upon any pretext whatsoever – or none at all.

The thing is that John’s life as the friend/companion/pet of Martok Barden AKA Black Hand is a better life than most of his people have. Not that Martok is wealthy or that John’s life is privileged in material goods, but that Martok mostly, sorta/kinda, treats John as family. However much or little Martok has at any given time – and it’s often quite little indeed – he shares it equally with John.

But John is not free. Martok owns his bond. And, in order to fund Martok’s latest scheme to make them rich – a scheme that John is certain is no more likely to succeed than any of Martok’s other such schemes – Martok has put John’s bond up as collateral for the loan he needs to set things up.

Martok has 60 days to make enough of a profit to pay back the loan AND make the FIRST payment on John’s bond. John has no expectation of this happening as it’s never happened before and Martok, as usual, is spending money like water while he has it.

John is scared and desperate. He’s sure his situation is hopeless – and it might very well be. Which is when, in his desperation, he tells a big lie, discovers it’s a big truth, and learns that the world he was born into is bigger, smaller and a whole hell of a lot different than anything he ever imagined.

And that it might still kill him before he figures out, not so much a way out as, well, anything at all.

Escape Rating A-: If this reminds me of any of this author’s work, it’s definitely Mickey7, but not in any of the ways that one might think. Because Mickey7 tells a serious story with a lot of wry, grim, and even gallows humor, and After the Fall has much the same tone, even if the SFnal tropes it’s poking at are entirely different.

Mickey7 poked at colonization stories, After the Fall plays havoc with post-apocalypse scenarios AND alien invasion stories in ways that this reader has seen spread across several stories, but not all in the same place.

At first After the Fall reminded me a whole hell of a lot of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Ogres – but that’s not all. Because the alien invasion scenario has a LOT of elements of Anna Hackett’s Hell Squad series, at least if you squint. It wasn’t until the end that I came to the conclusion that, more than anything, After the Fall has a TON of bits from Planet of the Apes, and that’s more than a bit of a shocker that I’m still reeling from.

Let me back up and explain – or at least try.

John’s future Earth is one where humanity destroyed most of the place. It’s not specified, but there are hints of a climate apocalypse and/or a biological warfare catastrophe. After humans fouled their own nests, the ‘Grays’ swept in, conquered the remaining human population, and are clinging to a small scrap of territory that can still support life. ANY life.

Which is where John comes in, 120 years after the Fall and 100 years after the Grays arrived, decimated the remaining human population with superior technology and weaponry AND imposed their laws and began their breeding program.

John is the product of generations of programming to be subservient and obedient, to do what he’s told and live in fear of getting it wrong and being immediately executed. But Martok is not the usual Gray, he really does treat John as much like a friend as their situation allows, and doesn’t see how far the power imbalance between them makes John’s feelings for him and about their situation a whole hell of a lot more complicated.

And it’s that part of the story that makes Martok’s scheme go pear-shaped in ways that he doesn’t expect. Ironically, it’s also where a lot of the gallows humor comes in as John lives every day with the certain knowledge that it might be his last and that it will be his fault. Which doesn’t keep him from thinking that Martok’s ambitions will ALWAYS exceed his grasp (a lot of families have someone EXACTLY like Martok with big plans and poor follow through).

(Also, and just FYI, I kept visualizing the Grays as looking a lot like Roz in Monsters, Inc. only, of course, GRAY. I don’t know exactly why that’s the picture that popped into my head, but it did add to the underlying humor of Martok as a character.)

But their situation forces John to start thinking and not just reacting, especially when Martok throws a smartass human tween called Six into the mix. With all the consequences of putting a tween’s snark and sass into a situation where everything could be questioned but hasn’t been.

That a part of the plot twist is that John and the tween are pulling a con on the local gang leader while keeping it from Martok, that Martok is keeping the wool over their eyes about his true plans and purpose and that there are ‘feral’ humans hiding in the woods intending to survive by colluding with anyone whose willing, adds just a bit of ‘Keystone Cops’ flare into a part of the story that would otherwise be completely serious – all while being completely serious and scared about the parts of each plan that are being hidden from the other actors in parts of the farce.

One other thing that I feel the need to mention. A lot of the story happens inside John’s head. Because he’s always reacting to his situation and trying to find a way to survive it. So the action, when it happens, is short and sharp and then John deals with it the best he can at the time, which doesn’t always work out in the long run. Then again, John has been programmed his entire life not to think about the long term because the odds are far against his having one. The way he processes what’s happening to him – and what might happen – reminds me of a story about judging faces and body language in a population of former slaves who became extremely good at projecting one set of generally calm and submissive reactions while underneath they were plotting a large-scale revolt. That shoe fits entirely too well.

Nevertheless and because, both at the same time, After the Fall works. I was a bit surprised at how well it works. Even the ending fits, as it’s not so much happy as it is equivocal, with enough room for hope and catastrophe all around. But not, and this is the part that’s important for the story, not on THAT particular day. The days to come, well, they’ll come whether or not their little corner of this messed up world worries about them or not. Whatever, whoever, or however much tragedy those days might bring. John’s TODAY is golden, and that’s enough for him.