River of Teeth

As one of his last acts of his presidency in early 1861, President James Buchanan approved the Hippo Act, a plan to import hippopotamuses into the United States as livestock. Decades later, the lawless swamps of Louisiana are infested with murderous feral hippos, and Winslow Houndstooth and his band of misfits are hired to clear them out.

River of Teeth was a finalist for the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella^[3] and 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella.^[4]

Kirkus Reviews considered it to be "delightful" and "fun and charming", comparing it to Ocean's Eleven, but faulted it for having some "awkward transitions".^[5] Publishers Weekly called it "intricate", with a "tight pace" and "complex relationships" between characters, commending Gailey's exposition.^[6]

Writing for NPR, Amal El-Mohtar praised Gailey's worldbuilding, but felt that the "characters [were] somewhat ill-served at novella length".^[7] At Strange Horizons, Samira Nadkarni emphasized that the story was "fun" and "action-adventure escapism", lauding the portrayal of a romance between bisexual Houndstooth and nonbinary Hero Shackleby; however, Nadkarni also criticized the focus on single aspects of the intersectional characters' identities, and observed that Gailey omitted entire indigenous populations who historically would have lived in that part of Louisiana.^[8]