A Cyberpunk Heist: Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto Review

I picked up Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto during the Trans Rights Readathon, as the dramatic setup for this cyberpunk heist novel compelled me. It ended up being one of the most memorable stories I read for the event.

Edie’s last heist ended with them being sold out by their childhood friend, Angel, and spending eight years locked away on a prison planet. When they’re suddenly let out due to Angel’s interference and she invites them on one more job, they emphatically turn her down. But upon returning home to the Kepler space station and seeing how much help their sister and her children need, as well as realizing that nobody is willing to hire a blacklisted felon, Edie caves and takes the offer.  

The bulk of this book is spent on the lead-up to the heist, with an impressive attention to detail paid to each element. Considering how much of the book is dedicated to the preparation, I was caught off guard by how smoothly so many of these pieces went; perhaps it’s because these parts are showing off each character’s specialties, or perhaps it’s because we know the heist has to happen and therefore there wouldn’t be much suspense anyway, but I still expected a few more obstacles to force the characters to improvise. 

Nonetheless, these sections were still engaging to me due to the dynamics developing between the team. The characters themselves hit every note I want for a heist team—a group with varied backgrounds, skill sets, and motivations, all of whom have decided that what they have to gain is worth whatever they have to lose, and who come together for a common, ridiculous cause despite various friction points. Many scenes deftly handle several moving parts, between the heist pieces and the team’s banter, in a rich and entertaining way.

On the other hand, the tension’s pacing also caught me off guard in the main relationship between Edie and Angel. Though we get tidbits throughout about their past baggage and demonstrations of their chemistry, that relationship doesn’t make much progress for the middle chunk of the book. When it did start coming to a head, I initially wasn’t sure how to feel about it. The setup of their dynamic was compelling, though, and I did feel catharsis over their final beats. 

Regardless of my varied investment in the main romance, I still loved seeing this team of sapphic thieves with various gender presentations. Rather than their identities being plot points, the book casually weaves in references to butch/femme culture and characters’ transitions throughout. I also enjoyed the way that Hawaiian Pidgin is incorporated into the dialogue without any attempt to translate or italicize. 

The fact that this is a heist team full of marginalized characters doesn’t feel incidental; the book’s main antagonist is a trillionaire whose downfall the reader will root for, not just for his unspeakable levels of privilege and predatory behavior, but because his tech company is integral to the social inequality the characters have faced. When Edie gets out of jail, they have to contend with the fact that they can’t simply return to the life they once knew. Not only have their opportunities been cut off, but their home has been gentrified, and their sister can’t afford treatment for her daughter’s cancer. 

On a broader level, this story serves as a warning of what happens when companies are allowed to take away people’s health, privacy, communities, history—even their ownership over their own minds and bodies. Some takes on cyberpunk treat modification of the human body as something that is grotesque by nature, but this story focuses on the danger of giving a corporation control over literal parts of people. 

Despite all these big ideas and the heightened heist plot, this story remains grounded in the universal human experience of time, and the fact that time lost can never be regained. The characters must confront this reality as they try to take back some of what has been stolen from them. Like any good heist story, Hammajang Luck asks how far someone might go to improve their fortune—and whether it’s worth the risk.

Content note: This book contains references to sexual assault.