Flinx Transcendent

Despite some ambiguity about whether the Tar-Aiym died out 500 thousand or million years ago, despite my usual groan at any focus on the unnecessary Clarity Held, and despite any mention of how the Great Evil felt after having been defeated, it was a fitting end to the grand story arc. It felt like two books, really. The sojourn to Blassussar would\’ve fit neatly into its own volume. I don\’t mind not having to pay twice, of course. The finale, I felt – the final victory – could\’ve been drawn out a little more. Certainly worth reading, especially if you\’ve been reading through the series.

Yet another in the very popular sci-fi series. For many with scientific training, the mixture of not always implausible science and magical fantasy can be irritating. However; such books can be judged on the interest of the characters. While there is not deep psychological insight, it\’s still possible find many of these believable human and non-human beings. The author\’s website indicated that, understandably, this is NOT the last in the series – his publisher would be aghast! The title apparently will be \”By the Throat\”, presumably a reference to the reptilian aliens\’ greeting to each other with mutual throat grabs! One criticism; not of the book, but about the cover illustrations of this and others in the series. No flying creature, whether avian or reptilian, can be very fast and agile without being fairly small. Those flying dragons are described as \”buzzing like a herculean bumble-bee\”, which makes sense, so their bodies, if snake-like, would have to be small, with a rigid rib cage to support powerful fast-moving wings.

In the first 1/2 of the book, the story involved the usual enjoyable Pip and Flinx shenanigans. However, things took a decided turn for the \”meh.\” All throughout the series, the Aann have been the sole race to communicate using a combination of spoken word and gestures, heavily alluding to how unusual it is for Flinx, a Humanx, to utilize the same means of gestures in a manner that even Aann find to be impressive. Suddenly a past character, a Thranx, appears, and is using Aann gestures with no explanation. While reading this book, I suspect that Alan Dean Foster forgot that Thranx don\’t use gestures the way that Aann do, or else forgot that Syl was a Thranx. When I bought this book, I had recently re-read the past books in order to be sure I remembered everything. This is the only book in the series that I can find that mentions the elaborate gestures as a means of communication for any race beyond the Aann. The end of the book clinched it for me; Flinx comes into contact with the cetaceans, a whale race mentioned in a book outside of the Pip and Flinx series and that I have not yet read. Google searches indicate that the book involving the Cetaceans is a Humanx Commonwealth book, but was written outside of the plot line of Flinx\’s story. Their sudden appearance at the end of the story comes flying out of nowhere and is treated as though it were cannon for Flinx to be completely aware of and in contact with them. This book started out as entertaining and riveting as the past stories, then turned into a hurried and sloppily executed rush job in order to put the whole thing to rest.

The plot was good but the contradictions in it were ridiculous. Example, Flinx broadcasts the emotion of love of live to people who WANT TO DIE until they collapse in ecstasy and a woman in the room who wants to live asks, \”What did you do to them?\” If it effected them to that degree it should certainly have overwhelmed her. After all they were all human beings. There are too many of these things in the book. Two books ago in the sequence Bran Tse Mallory was slender and moved with the grace of a dancer. Now he a large muscular man. I think Foster just wanted to wrap the sequel up with a bang. Obviously nobody proofread it. Sometimes Scrap is male, sometimes Scrap is female. That makes no difference in the plot but it\’s sheer carelessness.

A nice round up of the series. I found this series years ago at the the time after Star Wars started. It introduced me to this author. And there is still \”Wiggle room!\” for future visits.

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