Buzzard is the best piece of dystopian fiction I’ve read in a long time. Inez Ray drops the reader into a horrifying world for which we are already seeing road signs- patriarchy reigns, women’s rights are suppressed, climate catastrophe is reality, and paramilitary corporations run it all. Mae is serving a sentence for providing abortions in a time where fertility is controlled by companies like Obsityan, who also runs the prison; she spends long days and nights using her nursing skills to aid teenage drone pilot/prisoners and when one too many turns up pregnant, and an opportunity to have her sentence commuted by looking the other way arises, Mae thinks her time in this Orwellian prison is over and maybe, just maybe, she will get to see her two sons again. But in Ray’s world, Obsityan is everywhere, even in the middle of the desert, where Mae’s past catches up with her when a pregnant woman in labor shows up with a driver who has an agenda.
Buzzard by Inez Ray, (List Price: $19.95, Bindery Books, 9781967967261, September 2026)
Reviewed by Jamie, Duck’s Cottage Coffee & Books in Duck, NC