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Hi, me again. Back with another review, you know the drill.
The topic of today is Solarpunk Cleanup Agent, a lovingly crafted story about a girl working as a footsoldier for a very unlovingly crafted dystopian regime. Fiona Jarnafeldt is a Trollslayer (those in the enforcement arm of the government known as the Stormwatch tasked with hunting the various monsters in the setting's take on 3026), enrolled in such a role in the hopes that she might one day earn the right to bear a child, a seemingly basic human right now restricted only to those willing to fight and die for the regime (or circumvent its authorities and live as a vagrant in the stormdrains beneath the city).
The story's two greatest strengths are the action and the intrigue (which is helpful because those are the two most important elements). The fight scenes are visceral and well conveyed, and despite the trappings of the format where some degree of plot armor is expected, a sense of genuine danger flares up in every fight, and as such the parts spent quietly hunting down the beasts are always rife with dread, as you wonder whether or not you're the hunter or the quarry while you trudge the stormdrains. The underlying mystery elements build slowly and naturally, as mistrust begins to build in Fiona regarding the powers that be and the people around her (at risk of spoiling, I'll leave it at that). The story's worldbuilding is fantastic too, its Scandinavian-Folklore inspiration adding a unique flavor of ancient mysticism as the reader is left wondering whether the mutations of the so-called trolls is really as scientifically explainable as some might have you believe. Regardless of the ultimate explanation, whatever it may be, the dubious presence of fantasy elements adds a really neat spin to the conventions of a sci-fi dystopia.
The biggest gripe that I have with the quest is Fiona's motivations: having motherhood, rather than power or glory or money or anything else that might more naturally fit with the concept of fighting and killing monsters, be the mc's primary motive is a very deliberate choice. I do think that having her motive be something so pure and feminine is a solid contrast to the brutal, grim, generally male-connotated work of the Stormwatch. That said, I feel as if the audience is never really shown why Fiona is so obsessed with the idea of starting her own family, nor what other motives if any might be behind her overwhelming desire to have a kid. Her superior L5 Jousten is also so fixated on the concept that she climbed to the very top of the stormwatch and the matter is never explored with her either. While not necessarily a black mark, it's a little unsatisfying to see the theme of motherhood and the reversal of the mama bear archetype (fighting to have kids in the future instead of to protect the ones you already have) just kinda dangled without commentary or elaboration.
