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I’ve followed Natalie Ironside on Tumblr for a couple years now, because, idunno, I have no rhyme or reason for why I follow people on Tumblr. So I knew about The Last Girl Scout well before it was published. But I really only pushed it up my to-read list when real live people that I know not from the internet also started reading it and said it was very good.
And it is. It is extremely fun. It is about a bunch of militant communists and anarchists killing Nazis in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where there are zombies and vampires and stuff. And also talking about their feelings and arguing about Lenin. There’s lots of jokes and swearing and blowing stuff up. There are a lot of trans characters, including both our protagonists–Mags, a political commissar in the Ashland Confederated Republic, and Jules, an ex-Arditi with lots of unfortunate tattoos–and one of the major villains in the second half (Natasha Wenden, an Arditi military doctor, foil for Jules and a not particularly subtle example of why doing the oppressors’ dirty work for them to keep yourself safe will always have an expiration date).
As a self-published book it could have used another round of at least copy edits; as much as I would have loved to see a more polished version of this that had gone through the whole process of professional-level attention, I do not think that a book this explicitly Bolsheviksy would get bought by a mainstream publisher without a certain amount of ~toning it down~, and the total lack of toning it down is a big part of what made it so enjoyable. It’s satisfyingly indulgent for a somewhat niche audience of leftist queerdos whomst have actually spent time trying to do a left unity and fight fascists–the reds and the blacks bicker good-naturedly but always manage to work together without major mishap; the Nazis have superior numbers but are both stupid and overconfident, and have a tendency to defect. Some helpful vampires appear out of nowhere. An entire U.S. military base gets nuked. Jules gets a kickass motorcycle. Mags sings John Brown’s Body and everyone claps. Just good clean fun all around.
And it is. It is extremely fun. It is about a bunch of militant communists and anarchists killing Nazis in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where there are zombies and vampires and stuff. And also talking about their feelings and arguing about Lenin. There’s lots of jokes and swearing and blowing stuff up. There are a lot of trans characters, including both our protagonists–Mags, a political commissar in the Ashland Confederated Republic, and Jules, an ex-Arditi with lots of unfortunate tattoos–and one of the major villains in the second half (Natasha Wenden, an Arditi military doctor, foil for Jules and a not particularly subtle example of why doing the oppressors’ dirty work for them to keep yourself safe will always have an expiration date).
As a self-published book it could have used another round of at least copy edits; as much as I would have loved to see a more polished version of this that had gone through the whole process of professional-level attention, I do not think that a book this explicitly Bolsheviksy would get bought by a mainstream publisher without a certain amount of ~toning it down~, and the total lack of toning it down is a big part of what made it so enjoyable. It’s satisfyingly indulgent for a somewhat niche audience of leftist queerdos whomst have actually spent time trying to do a left unity and fight fascists–the reds and the blacks bicker good-naturedly but always manage to work together without major mishap; the Nazis have superior numbers but are both stupid and overconfident, and have a tendency to defect. Some helpful vampires appear out of nowhere. An entire U.S. military base gets nuked. Jules gets a kickass motorcycle. Mags sings John Brown’s Body and everyone claps. Just good clean fun all around.