Trouble Magnet

Book number twelve (in reading order) of a fifteen book space opera with psi series. I reread the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Del Rey in 2007 that I bought new since I cannot find my copy in my packed books. I will continue to read through the series. BTW, the previous book in the series is \”Bloodhype\” which was published in 1983. Flinx has his own FTL spaceship, the Teacher, built and given to him by the Ulru-Ujurrians. Flinx is searching for the Tar-Aiym planet full of Krangs that has moved itself across the Galaxy to a new location. On the way to the Blight, he stopped at the planet of Visaria to see if anyone there deserved to be saved from the threat of the galaxy being destroyed.

This book is a stand-alone story that could have come almost anywhere in the series. The beginning of this book is a little like the comedian who says, \”bang,\” and then continues with \”and speaking of bombs.\” In other words, the first chapter feels to me like pap intended to shoe-horn it into the series as it stands and feels forced and unnecessary. For some reason that never clarifies he felt the need to bring Peot and the Vom into the story as driving experiences and places this story soon after \”Bloodhype\” (1973, out of print), and also soon after the more recent books, \”Flynx\’s Folly\” (2003) and \”Sliding Scales\” (2004). That being said it\’s an OK Flinx story but not a great one. It moves along just fine, but a significant portion of the book is not about Flinx, but about building a situation from which Flinx must save, or in turn do battle with, strangers. The book is about a group of street urchins (or teenage gang if you prefer) on some unimportant planet (who for some reason have access to advanced theft technology with very short notice) who need to be rescued multiple times by a bored visiting Flinx (visiting for reasons given, but ultimately unimportant). The characters are fairly thin and the Flinx character is not significantly enhanced by this story. So, if you don\’t know him already, you won\’t really meet him in this book and if you are long-time fan, as I am, you won\’t learn anything new about him that couldn\’t be summarized using one terse sentence at the beginning of the next novel. The end of the story adds a little to the arc (can you say \”technology indistinguishable from magic\”, I knew you could), but it\’s likely a pointless addition as it\’s clear that there is nothing added that Flinx will be able to use in the next story. At the end of the book ADF uses an unsubtle \”look over there, the next book\” thread, with barely comprehensible logic by Flinx, based on one word from a character that was both introduced and dies in this book; that word is \”Gestalt.\” (His web site already says the next books are \”Patrimony\” and \”Flinx Transcendent\” and mentions \”Gestalt\” in the timeline.) Also annoying is that there were many more typo errors in this volume (hardback) than I have come to expect from modern books. For example, especially in the current computer publishing age, you would think that a sentence with \”of\” instead of \”or\” would be caught automatically, of one where a doubled word is doubled showing an obvious edit point. Considering the plethora of uncommon and made-up words in the lexicon of this book the typos significantly effected my reading enjoyment. The bottom line is that if you are waiting for the next Flinx book to move the \”void\” and Tar-Aiym weapon system story lines forward, you are still waiting because this is not it. However, if you are looking for an enjoyable, quick read, throwaway Flinx story, this is it. Only you can decide if that is worth paying the hardback price. I can say that it really won\’t matter if you read this book now or in 2 years, because it won\’t make a difference to the next book (always assuming the next book moves the story along).

I\’ve enjoyed ADF for a long time. Currently reading through the Pip/Flinx series. This book is totally out of sequence, and adds nothing to the overall story. While there are a few references to other books in the series, none of them tie together. I read about a third and am now figuratively throwing it away. Absolute waste of time.

At this point in the series, I am not holding out for chapter demarcations anymore really, but I think people should know when they are there in a book and when they are not as it makes reading easier to know when you\’re near the end of a chapter. I liked most of the characters in this book with the obvious exception of the true creeps in the book. I still hope this series has many more books to come after the next two in the series. I think anyone who liked the previous books in the series will like this one and should pick it up. I won\’t bore you with a plot summary as I know other reviewers are fond of doing that except to say at least one important thing was revealed and hinted at in the end of the book. I don\’t think most readers will be disappointed by this book in the series.

I always like the Flinx books, this was no exception, it had a good story and interesting events from which Fliinx had to extract himself usually with the help of pip but not always.

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