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Falcon
His life is a race against time. And time is winning.
He was a prince, until his world was plunged into civil war. He was a son, until he discovered his mother’s secret. He was an exile, until he became Niki Falcon, piloting a ship linked to his nervous system, crossing light-years in a breath, addicted to the drug that makes it all possible.
Now he needs to free a planet. But to save Lamia and defeat its enemy, Niki Falcon needs to cheat both physics and death...
�
A Locus Recommended Novel for 1989
New York Public Library list of best books for young adults, 1989
“Ms. Bull has an unabashed enthusiasm for the mythic dimensions of adventure fiction.� —The New York Times Book Review
“I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how the story was going to end... Bull knows how to fit bombshells in unobtrusively, then explode them at exactly the right moment.� —Locus magazine
"Absorbing...Entrancing." —Lois McMaster Bujold
“Emma Bull is one of the best writers working today. She combines an elegant style with high adventure and thoughtful speculation. Falcon is one of my favorite novels. Read it.� � Steven Brust
“Falcon soars! Exciting, evocative, and entertaining. I couldn’t put it down!� —Chris Claremont
“A taut and chilling SF adventure. Bull is outstanding among the new generation of writers.� —Julian May
"Stark and strong: Strict science fiction, purely myth. A perfect novel!" —R. A. MacAvoy
He was a prince, until his world was plunged into civil war. He was a son, until he discovered his mother’s secret. He was an exile, until he became Niki Falcon, piloting a ship linked to his nervous system, crossing light-years in a breath, addicted to the drug that makes it all possible.
Now he needs to free a planet. But to save Lamia and defeat its enemy, Niki Falcon needs to cheat both physics and death...
�
A Locus Recommended Novel for 1989
New York Public Library list of best books for young adults, 1989
“Ms. Bull has an unabashed enthusiasm for the mythic dimensions of adventure fiction.� —The New York Times Book Review
“I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how the story was going to end... Bull knows how to fit bombshells in unobtrusively, then explode them at exactly the right moment.� —Locus magazine
"Absorbing...Entrancing." —Lois McMaster Bujold
“Emma Bull is one of the best writers working today. She combines an elegant style with high adventure and thoughtful speculation. Falcon is one of my favorite novels. Read it.� � Steven Brust
“Falcon soars! Exciting, evocative, and entertaining. I couldn’t put it down!� —Chris Claremont
“A taut and chilling SF adventure. Bull is outstanding among the new generation of writers.� —Julian May
"Stark and strong: Strict science fiction, purely myth. A perfect novel!" —R. A. MacAvoy
281 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1989
26 people are currently reading
376 people want to read
About the author
Emma Bull
83Ìýbooks690ÌýfollowersEmma Bull is a science fiction and fantasy author whose best-known novel is War for the Oaks, one of the pioneering works of urban fantasy. She has participated in Terri Windling's Borderland shared universe, which is the setting of her 1994 novel Finder. She sang in the rock-funk band Cats Laughing, and both sang and played guitar in the folk duo The Flash Girls while living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Her 1991 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel Bone Dance was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Bull wrote a screenplay for War for the Oaks, which was made into an 11-minute mini-film designed to look like a film trailer. She made a cameo appearance as the Queen of the Seelie Court, and her husband, Will Shetterly, directed. Bull and Shetterly created the shared universe of Liavek, for which they have both written stories. There are five Liavek collections extant.
She was a member of the writing group The Scribblies, which included Will Shetterly as well as Pamela Dean, Kara Dalkey, Nate Bucklin, Patricia Wrede and Steven Brust. With Steven Brust, Bull wrote Freedom and Necessity (1997), an epistolary novel with subtle fantasy elements set during the 19th century United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Chartist movement.
Bull graduated from Beloit College in 1976. Bull and Shetterly live in Arizona.
Her 1991 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel Bone Dance was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Bull wrote a screenplay for War for the Oaks, which was made into an 11-minute mini-film designed to look like a film trailer. She made a cameo appearance as the Queen of the Seelie Court, and her husband, Will Shetterly, directed. Bull and Shetterly created the shared universe of Liavek, for which they have both written stories. There are five Liavek collections extant.
She was a member of the writing group The Scribblies, which included Will Shetterly as well as Pamela Dean, Kara Dalkey, Nate Bucklin, Patricia Wrede and Steven Brust. With Steven Brust, Bull wrote Freedom and Necessity (1997), an epistolary novel with subtle fantasy elements set during the 19th century United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Chartist movement.
Bull graduated from Beloit College in 1976. Bull and Shetterly live in Arizona.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
February 14, 2019
I honestly don't know how many stars to give this, or how to write a better blurb for it. It's an intelligent and literary SF thriller, is the best, and least, that I can say.
The first half reads a bit like historical fiction, because Niki is an actual prince, in a some place far away that has been heavily influenced by Welsh traditions. The second half is very much intrigue & adventure. Lots of oblique hints & nuances that many readers relish but that drive me nuts. The ending is pretty big, y'know the thing SF does sometimes where a new thing becomes a big deal (like 2001, but not that big tg).
Exemplary sample:
"When Niki left his room he was washed, neatly dressed, and half convinced that someone had vacuumed his tongue. He wished desperately that he had a pin of almost anything; even Poison, the purchased suffering of weekend poets, would run like gas-blue fire through his veins and clear his mind with pain. Sleep would have been nice."
The first half reads a bit like historical fiction, because Niki is an actual prince, in a some place far away that has been heavily influenced by Welsh traditions. The second half is very much intrigue & adventure. Lots of oblique hints & nuances that many readers relish but that drive me nuts. The ending is pretty big, y'know the thing SF does sometimes where a new thing becomes a big deal (like 2001, but not that big tg).
Exemplary sample:
"When Niki left his room he was washed, neatly dressed, and half convinced that someone had vacuumed his tongue. He wished desperately that he had a pin of almost anything; even Poison, the purchased suffering of weekend poets, would run like gas-blue fire through his veins and clear his mind with pain. Sleep would have been nice."
August 24, 2012
I recently read a post on the structure of this early Emma Bull SF novel; I was inspired to pick it back up for a re-read. (Thank you, ye-who.)
A couple of years ago I re-read John M. Ford's _The Princes of the Air_, and found that it was the book that I always mix up with _Falcon_. Returning to _Falcon_, I realize how very much it is a love letter to Ford. One can trace any number of plot elements and themes back to Ford's SF novels, _Princes..._ and _Web of Angels_ (both published in the decade leading up to _Falcon_). Spies, government plots, mind-altering poisons, the long con, passionate art, the grind of history, people being deeply human. The style, too, follows Ford: allusive, elliptical... haunted, I want to say. Not at all how I remember Bull's first novel, _War for the Oaks_ (though I have not revisited that in years).
_Falcon_ is two short novels, welded together. First: a young Niki Glyndwr, aristocratic scion and casual rakehell, returns from vacation to find a political crisis catching fire on his culturally-Welsh home planet. He grows up, or tries to, or tries at least to save something; he fails. And second: an older Niki, fled from the wreckage and his name, has volunteered for one of those experimental projects that lets pilots navigate hyperspace, while killing them slowly and romantically. (You know the type.) Having lived just long enough to recreate a life for himself, Niki now runs into the reality of his slow-motion suicide gesture while tangled in an interplanetary thriller plot.
Part one is narrated by Niki, tight third person. Part two is introduced by Jhari Sabayan (government agent), and then Chrysander Harris (musician and vid-artist), two of the people whose lives collide with Niki's. The bulk of part two rotates between Chrysander's narration and Niki's (third-person), with interludes from Jhari (first-person, future-framed).
First lemme say -- for those of you who have not read _Falcon_ and clicked this link expecting a book review -- _Falcon_ is an excellent (somewhat 80s, very emo) SF novel. You should read it. Then read Emma Bull's other novels (sadly few in number). Then read all of John M. Ford, because I have to say things like that. Okay?
So, back to the structure.
I get the time gap. The gap is necessary. Maybe it's my narrative biases, or the perversion of a lifetime in game design, or just "that's the way Ford does it", but I am a sucker for storytelling between the lines. Even if the lines are ten years and an emotional lifetime apart. We don't need to see Niki's despair, his desire for extinction, or the road that led him to the gestalt-pilot program. It's all drawn in by a few well-sketched reminisces and the reality of Niki ten years on. Nothing is missing here. Besides, Niki is way more *interesting* ten years on. A man who's picked up a few threads and is gripping them -- in the face of death -- has way more to say than an emo twenty-year-old.
(The novel has more gaps than I'm describing. Notably, when part two begins, we get Jhari's first-person narration -- but *not* her name. It is another chapter before we are introduced to Jhari Sabayan, and a few more before it becomes (indirectly) clear that she is the nameless framer of the (half-) story. The ending of the book then ties together all sorts of threads that, in retrospect, we didn't even know were dangling. In this model, putting ten years in the rear-view mirror is just another bounce.)
The real question, to me, is: why give Niki's viewpoint *at all* in part two? If you're going for the bold gesture, *go* for it: show him entirely from the outside. It should be possible; I don't think there's anything there that requires his internality. You'd have to rejigger the plot to balance Chrysander with more Jhari, is all. (Maybe run Jhari both in third-person and first-person.)
(The book needs more Jhari, anyhow. We mostly see her having a mad crush on Niki and then being angry at him. We know she has as much history as him, because calendar; but it's not sketched in the same way. So she comes off as a bit of a reflecting mirror.)
Presenting Niki from the external view will dehumanize or deify him -- but come on, the book does that anyhow. The narrative (in Jhari's voice) isn't shy about destiny, teleology, and power chords as the camera pulls back on the gulfs of space. Note: I can visualize this cinematography because I have the same defiantly adolescent tastes in storytelling. No apologies. My point is, again, if the book is going to go there, it should wear the tights.
Well, we do not have the book I'm making up; we have the book Bull wrote. I am satisfied with it. It is over-the-top in some ways, confidently experimental in others, genre-aware and genre-unashamed -- a mode that I associate with the Minnesota Scribblies group of the era -- a style that might have been called the Second New Wave if it had sparked more widely. (Instead we just say "Wow, Steven Brust, he's awesome. Gene Wolfe, he's awesome. Iain Banks, okay, not from Minnesota, but awesome. Pamela Dean..." and so on. And then turn around to stare at cyberpunk and the new-hard-SF of the following decades.)
Zarf says: read, and then read its context.
A couple of years ago I re-read John M. Ford's _The Princes of the Air_, and found that it was the book that I always mix up with _Falcon_. Returning to _Falcon_, I realize how very much it is a love letter to Ford. One can trace any number of plot elements and themes back to Ford's SF novels, _Princes..._ and _Web of Angels_ (both published in the decade leading up to _Falcon_). Spies, government plots, mind-altering poisons, the long con, passionate art, the grind of history, people being deeply human. The style, too, follows Ford: allusive, elliptical... haunted, I want to say. Not at all how I remember Bull's first novel, _War for the Oaks_ (though I have not revisited that in years).
_Falcon_ is two short novels, welded together. First: a young Niki Glyndwr, aristocratic scion and casual rakehell, returns from vacation to find a political crisis catching fire on his culturally-Welsh home planet. He grows up, or tries to, or tries at least to save something; he fails. And second: an older Niki, fled from the wreckage and his name, has volunteered for one of those experimental projects that lets pilots navigate hyperspace, while killing them slowly and romantically. (You know the type.) Having lived just long enough to recreate a life for himself, Niki now runs into the reality of his slow-motion suicide gesture while tangled in an interplanetary thriller plot.
Part one is narrated by Niki, tight third person. Part two is introduced by Jhari Sabayan (government agent), and then Chrysander Harris (musician and vid-artist), two of the people whose lives collide with Niki's. The bulk of part two rotates between Chrysander's narration and Niki's (third-person), with interludes from Jhari (first-person, future-framed).
First lemme say -- for those of you who have not read _Falcon_ and clicked this link expecting a book review -- _Falcon_ is an excellent (somewhat 80s, very emo) SF novel. You should read it. Then read Emma Bull's other novels (sadly few in number). Then read all of John M. Ford, because I have to say things like that. Okay?
So, back to the structure.
I get the time gap. The gap is necessary. Maybe it's my narrative biases, or the perversion of a lifetime in game design, or just "that's the way Ford does it", but I am a sucker for storytelling between the lines. Even if the lines are ten years and an emotional lifetime apart. We don't need to see Niki's despair, his desire for extinction, or the road that led him to the gestalt-pilot program. It's all drawn in by a few well-sketched reminisces and the reality of Niki ten years on. Nothing is missing here. Besides, Niki is way more *interesting* ten years on. A man who's picked up a few threads and is gripping them -- in the face of death -- has way more to say than an emo twenty-year-old.
(The novel has more gaps than I'm describing. Notably, when part two begins, we get Jhari's first-person narration -- but *not* her name. It is another chapter before we are introduced to Jhari Sabayan, and a few more before it becomes (indirectly) clear that she is the nameless framer of the (half-) story. The ending of the book then ties together all sorts of threads that, in retrospect, we didn't even know were dangling. In this model, putting ten years in the rear-view mirror is just another bounce.)
The real question, to me, is: why give Niki's viewpoint *at all* in part two? If you're going for the bold gesture, *go* for it: show him entirely from the outside. It should be possible; I don't think there's anything there that requires his internality. You'd have to rejigger the plot to balance Chrysander with more Jhari, is all. (Maybe run Jhari both in third-person and first-person.)
(The book needs more Jhari, anyhow. We mostly see her having a mad crush on Niki and then being angry at him. We know she has as much history as him, because calendar; but it's not sketched in the same way. So she comes off as a bit of a reflecting mirror.)
Presenting Niki from the external view will dehumanize or deify him -- but come on, the book does that anyhow. The narrative (in Jhari's voice) isn't shy about destiny, teleology, and power chords as the camera pulls back on the gulfs of space. Note: I can visualize this cinematography because I have the same defiantly adolescent tastes in storytelling. No apologies. My point is, again, if the book is going to go there, it should wear the tights.
Well, we do not have the book I'm making up; we have the book Bull wrote. I am satisfied with it. It is over-the-top in some ways, confidently experimental in others, genre-aware and genre-unashamed -- a mode that I associate with the Minnesota Scribblies group of the era -- a style that might have been called the Second New Wave if it had sparked more widely. (Instead we just say "Wow, Steven Brust, he's awesome. Gene Wolfe, he's awesome. Iain Banks, okay, not from Minnesota, but awesome. Pamela Dean..." and so on. And then turn around to stare at cyberpunk and the new-hard-SF of the following decades.)
Zarf says: read, and then read its context.
February 6, 2024
3rd read: I love how this novel holds its cards close. It only explains things when it wants to. And when things finally get explained, it's triumphant.
2nd read: Every time I read this book, I love it a little more.
2nd read: Every time I read this book, I love it a little more.
November 14, 2018
This has been one of my favorite books for a long time. This is one of those books with a lovable hero that everybody loves, even his enemies. I have a terrible appalling weakness for these types of books and Falcon was one of the earliest ones I ever encountered. Although rereading has made me aware of some weaknesses, I still can't bring myself to give this less than 5 stars.
January 2, 2024
This was a wonderful little find. A beautifully written science fiction story from a generation that loved to look at technologies impact on people, government and psychology. A very fun read, though a bit difficult at times.
February 5, 2012
I've been wanting to read Falcon since I was in junior high, shortly after I read and fell in love with
My crummy small town library (where I volunteered my weekends and summers) didn't have it, so I put in an inter-library loan request that was never fulfilled. I guess someone had failed to return it, and it wasn't a big enough title to warrant replacing. When I got my reader a few years ago, one of the first books I purchased was WftO and I got this one discounted for purchasing them together. I've re-read WftO twice since then, but am only now getting around to this one.
I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. My previous Emma Bull experience has been her Urban Fantasy (LOVED the Borderlands books she wrote with her husband, too), so this Space Opera kind of threw me for a loop.
It wasn't even very long, so I can't figure out why it took me so long to finish. There was this strange disconnect for me between the times I was reading and when I wasn't. While I was actually reading it, I'd be immersed in the story and read many pages at a time, loving it. Then I'd put it down to do other things and not even think about it. Instead of picking it up again when I had a free moment (what I usually do when I'm into a book…I'll make an excuse to read two pages while I'm toasting waffles for my littles. Pretty much any lull in activity is an excuse to pick up a book for a page or two), I found myself doing other things.
Anyway, once I got into the rhythm of the story, I enjoyed it. At the beginning, I felt like I was dropped into the book in the middle of something I was supposed to get, but didn't. Then, once I got the hang of what was going on there, everything changed. I'm not complaining, but it was a "ohhhhh, okay! I get it now, this is kind of groov…wait, what just happened, who's this new narrator? WHAT IS GOING ON?!" kind of thing.
Oh, and if you're picking this book up based on the jacket, be prepared that what's described in the blurb doesn't actually start to happen until the second half.
I'm going to give this book 3.5 stars, but round up to 4. I liked it, and will probably like it even more upon a second reading.
I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. My previous Emma Bull experience has been her Urban Fantasy (LOVED the Borderlands books she wrote with her husband, too), so this Space Opera kind of threw me for a loop.
It wasn't even very long, so I can't figure out why it took me so long to finish. There was this strange disconnect for me between the times I was reading and when I wasn't. While I was actually reading it, I'd be immersed in the story and read many pages at a time, loving it. Then I'd put it down to do other things and not even think about it. Instead of picking it up again when I had a free moment (what I usually do when I'm into a book…I'll make an excuse to read two pages while I'm toasting waffles for my littles. Pretty much any lull in activity is an excuse to pick up a book for a page or two), I found myself doing other things.
Anyway, once I got into the rhythm of the story, I enjoyed it. At the beginning, I felt like I was dropped into the book in the middle of something I was supposed to get, but didn't. Then, once I got the hang of what was going on there, everything changed. I'm not complaining, but it was a "ohhhhh, okay! I get it now, this is kind of groov…wait, what just happened, who's this new narrator? WHAT IS GOING ON?!" kind of thing.
Oh, and if you're picking this book up based on the jacket, be prepared that what's described in the blurb doesn't actually start to happen until the second half.
I'm going to give this book 3.5 stars, but round up to 4. I liked it, and will probably like it even more upon a second reading.
September 10, 2019
This wasn't quite what I was expecting, but I did enjoy it.
If you're considering reading this, ***Don't read the blurb!!!!*** The blurb only describes the second part of the book, which doesn't start until more than halfway through.
I think this is one I could read again and notice a lot of new things throughout. The author doesn't spend lots of time explaining the world/systems, instead she lets the reader figure out how things work through context, which is a style I rather enjoy. (I'm not so interested in technical details while I'm reading. As long as there aren't any contradictions, I'm fine.)
One thing that disappointed me a bit was
CW:
If you're considering reading this, ***Don't read the blurb!!!!*** The blurb only describes the second part of the book, which doesn't start until more than halfway through.
I think this is one I could read again and notice a lot of new things throughout. The author doesn't spend lots of time explaining the world/systems, instead she lets the reader figure out how things work through context, which is a style I rather enjoy. (I'm not so interested in technical details while I'm reading. As long as there aren't any contradictions, I'm fine.)
One thing that disappointed me a bit was
CW:
February 21, 2013
What a strange book. Parts of it are lyrical and lovely, but the structure is a mess. It starts slowly, in tight third person, and immerses us in the politics of a colony world. Then there's a break in the middle with a ten-year time jump, leaving the original world behind. The second half of the book rotates among three narrators. The original one pops up only a couple of times, and we're told the rest of the story by two new people. Bull does an excellent job of making us care about the newcomers, but ultimately, seeing how the story plays out through other people's eyes is not terribly satisfying.
January 31, 2011
A little disappointing; the book built well, but there wasn't the payoff I'd been expecting. (or the one that the back cover OR the occasional "notes from the future" in the book itself suggested was coming) That's where most of the downgrade comes from, otherwise the book is a fairly good space adventure wrapped around some sci-tech that's more Maguffin than anything else.
I have high expectations from Bull, having loved War for the Oaks (a book where she manages the climax in a much more satisfying fashion). Botching up the ending like this was a surprise and not a welcome one.
I have high expectations from Bull, having loved War for the Oaks (a book where she manages the climax in a much more satisfying fashion). Botching up the ending like this was a surprise and not a welcome one.
November 7, 2012
I liked the first part of the book, about a teenage slacker prince turned revolutionary leader. The second half of the book reads like an entirely different novel, one that I didn’t like as well. The writing is fine, but the science fiction elements didn’t work for me.
November 25, 2012
Absolutely heartbreaking and fantastic. I couldn't put it down. Compelling hero, surprising love story, and a fabulously out-of-nowhere ending.
January 29, 2015
It was very good. A bit too slow in places, which made picking it up after a break rather difficult but also made the ending all the more dynamic.
Read
November 12, 2016Started out great, became something completely different, Trump was elected, had to read something else for my own sanity.
April 9, 2019
She's very good. This was written in the 80s, but it didn't feel dated.
The science makes sense, as does the political and social setup. The tech is futuristic, but not demandingly so. It feels like the world she writes in this book could easily be the one we live in come another hundred years. The tech is there more like the walls of the house. You don't live in the walls, and this book doesn't live in the tech. It's part of life like the walls keep most of the weather out and our stuff in.
I'm not saying it well, but this is a well crafted book, more than worth reading, and it goes on my reread shelf.
The science makes sense, as does the political and social setup. The tech is futuristic, but not demandingly so. It feels like the world she writes in this book could easily be the one we live in come another hundred years. The tech is there more like the walls of the house. You don't live in the walls, and this book doesn't live in the tech. It's part of life like the walls keep most of the weather out and our stuff in.
I'm not saying it well, but this is a well crafted book, more than worth reading, and it goes on my reread shelf.
August 29, 2023
Two books? One book, with an extended set up for a somewhat dramatic finish. Bull's take on the Wolfian new wave / science fiction genre sees her plot a central tragic character against the twist and turn of genetics research, planetary romance, and general interstellar drama. Her characters are true to late '80s, post-Neuromancer tropes, but sensitively drawn and with a real eye for emotion. While the mid-book break was an interruption that almost made me quit reading, I was glad to pull through to the finish, even if I felt that the final double-back was not quite satisfying.
February 29, 2024
DNF at 23%
What i didnt know going into this reading was that this book is like 2 different books together. The first part reads more like political fiction and is written in 1st person with Niki. Apparently about page 125 there is a 10 year time jump and it goes into more of an action/adventure (like what the blurb on the back promised) and theres 3 narrators 1 being Niki but its mostly written in 3rd person. I made it halfway thru the 1st half and i was bored. I didn’t have any attachment to the characters at all. It was a bust for me. Ill try a different Emma Bull book sometime.
What i didnt know going into this reading was that this book is like 2 different books together. The first part reads more like political fiction and is written in 1st person with Niki. Apparently about page 125 there is a 10 year time jump and it goes into more of an action/adventure (like what the blurb on the back promised) and theres 3 narrators 1 being Niki but its mostly written in 3rd person. I made it halfway thru the 1st half and i was bored. I didn’t have any attachment to the characters at all. It was a bust for me. Ill try a different Emma Bull book sometime.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 28, 2023
What a fascinating book, it comes in two parts which are quite different from each other with a time gap in between so the structure is interesting but it also does the type of story telling that doesn't explain everything and lets the reader put the pieces together. These are things that when done well I really like so this book was a treat.
July 29, 2015
Could have been really good
There's a lot to like in this book, especially in the beginning: the writing is fluent, the opening section is taut and full of interesting characters, dirty politics and creeping tension, all leading up to a major explosion and an unexpected enemy is revealed.
Then the story goes off in a totally different direction and seems to lose its way. The enemy disappears for most of the rest of the book, while the main character slips out of the story's focus and it never really finds him again. Other interesting people show up, but either we get too little of them (Laura Brass) or we get too much about how they feel Niki affects them and too little of a mutual relationship (Chrysander and Jhari). It's really frustrating because there's a lot here that's good, and yet the story just petered out for me, especially given the weak ending that left the main character merely a kind enigma...
Maybe I've read too many stories about extraordinary beings who began in human form and became somehow perfected or Other: Robert Heinlein's Valentine Michael Smith, Frank Herbert's Paul Atreides, Andrea Host's Madeleine Cost... It's a specific genre almost and the real challenge for the writer is how to humanize a person who seems to be too perfect to be human.
In most cases it seems, writers use an observer to narrate the saint's journey and help the reader stay connected with the person's origin humanity. That can work really well for most of the book, though the ending is almost always problematic even so, but it needs to be handled carefully.
In the latter part of this story, Bull uses several POVs. There are the action segments, which generally follow Niki and/or Chrysander, and there are the log excerpts written by one of the other characters. I thought the log was handled in a way that didn't really serve the story. The log lost impact both because Bull chose not to identify its author right away, and because at the time the log was introduced, we knew little about who the person was or the nature of her current relationship with Niki Falcon.
I didn't understand the point of obscuring the log writer's identity since it's not hard to figure out that Jhari is the observer. Hiding her name lacked purpose, but it was a worse mistake for Bull to say so little about who Jhari and Niki had been to one another before introducing the log. We start off with no context for the relationship and then we get Niki and Jhari's story in such small bites that much of the impact of their shifting from lovers to adversaries to lovers is lost and their relationship feels ungrounded through the rest of the book. We have no idea why he cares so much for her rather than one of the other women he's loved, and that makes Jhari seem almost like one more pin Niki has caromed off of, instead of a person in her own right.
Then, too, Jhari's contributions fail to help us believe that Niki's still a real person. She writes about him from the beginning as if he's not really human, more like a chemical agent instead. She emphasises his role in life as being a catalyst or pivot, and talks a lot about how he changes people just by who he is with them, but she doesn't convincingly portray him as a flawed, fallible person. For this reason, his character becomes unmoored from the person we saw him to be in the beginning of the story, and we have no real clue how he became the person he is when we meet him many years later. Bull tells us very little about what happened to him after he fled Cymru and does it much too late to help the reader stay connected to him. The story needed to contain more of the events that shaped Niki during the period between his exile and the story's 'now'---and not as third-party recaps in Jhari's log, or in passing phrases in other people's conversations discussing Niki near the end of the book.
For the whole second section of the book Niki comes across as merely a kind enigma who hates violence, cries over slain enemies, and endlessly forgives his betrayers. None of those are bad things, but as the sum total of a person's actions, they lack the friction, grit and messiness of our common humanity. As a writer, you've got to help us accept that someone can make those choices while remaining human, and Bull doesn't quite pull it off. She tries, with the last vignette of Jhari and Niki together, but it doesn't really work, maybe because we're still viewing Niki from the outside, from Jhari's experience of him, and she's closer to worshipping him than actually loving him, it seems.
Heinlein did it best, I think, in Stranger in a Strange Land, in a conversation after the group has shared Mike's body as a funeral feast. "Needed a little salt." "Yes, Mike always did need a little seasoning."
Niki needs a bit of seasoning too, but just didn't get enough to make this work.
There's a lot to like in this book, especially in the beginning: the writing is fluent, the opening section is taut and full of interesting characters, dirty politics and creeping tension, all leading up to a major explosion and an unexpected enemy is revealed.
Then the story goes off in a totally different direction and seems to lose its way. The enemy disappears for most of the rest of the book, while the main character slips out of the story's focus and it never really finds him again. Other interesting people show up, but either we get too little of them (Laura Brass) or we get too much about how they feel Niki affects them and too little of a mutual relationship (Chrysander and Jhari). It's really frustrating because there's a lot here that's good, and yet the story just petered out for me, especially given the weak ending that left the main character merely a kind enigma...
Maybe I've read too many stories about extraordinary beings who began in human form and became somehow perfected or Other: Robert Heinlein's Valentine Michael Smith, Frank Herbert's Paul Atreides, Andrea Host's Madeleine Cost... It's a specific genre almost and the real challenge for the writer is how to humanize a person who seems to be too perfect to be human.
In most cases it seems, writers use an observer to narrate the saint's journey and help the reader stay connected with the person's origin humanity. That can work really well for most of the book, though the ending is almost always problematic even so, but it needs to be handled carefully.
In the latter part of this story, Bull uses several POVs. There are the action segments, which generally follow Niki and/or Chrysander, and there are the log excerpts written by one of the other characters. I thought the log was handled in a way that didn't really serve the story. The log lost impact both because Bull chose not to identify its author right away, and because at the time the log was introduced, we knew little about who the person was or the nature of her current relationship with Niki Falcon.
I didn't understand the point of obscuring the log writer's identity since it's not hard to figure out that Jhari is the observer. Hiding her name lacked purpose, but it was a worse mistake for Bull to say so little about who Jhari and Niki had been to one another before introducing the log. We start off with no context for the relationship and then we get Niki and Jhari's story in such small bites that much of the impact of their shifting from lovers to adversaries to lovers is lost and their relationship feels ungrounded through the rest of the book. We have no idea why he cares so much for her rather than one of the other women he's loved, and that makes Jhari seem almost like one more pin Niki has caromed off of, instead of a person in her own right.
Then, too, Jhari's contributions fail to help us believe that Niki's still a real person. She writes about him from the beginning as if he's not really human, more like a chemical agent instead. She emphasises his role in life as being a catalyst or pivot, and talks a lot about how he changes people just by who he is with them, but she doesn't convincingly portray him as a flawed, fallible person. For this reason, his character becomes unmoored from the person we saw him to be in the beginning of the story, and we have no real clue how he became the person he is when we meet him many years later. Bull tells us very little about what happened to him after he fled Cymru and does it much too late to help the reader stay connected to him. The story needed to contain more of the events that shaped Niki during the period between his exile and the story's 'now'---and not as third-party recaps in Jhari's log, or in passing phrases in other people's conversations discussing Niki near the end of the book.
For the whole second section of the book Niki comes across as merely a kind enigma who hates violence, cries over slain enemies, and endlessly forgives his betrayers. None of those are bad things, but as the sum total of a person's actions, they lack the friction, grit and messiness of our common humanity. As a writer, you've got to help us accept that someone can make those choices while remaining human, and Bull doesn't quite pull it off. She tries, with the last vignette of Jhari and Niki together, but it doesn't really work, maybe because we're still viewing Niki from the outside, from Jhari's experience of him, and she's closer to worshipping him than actually loving him, it seems.
Heinlein did it best, I think, in Stranger in a Strange Land, in a conversation after the group has shared Mike's body as a funeral feast. "Needed a little salt." "Yes, Mike always did need a little seasoning."
Niki needs a bit of seasoning too, but just didn't get enough to make this work.
June 23, 2022
The story about this superhero seemed too good to me since it tells everything about him
July 28, 2015
I love Emma Bull but had somehow missed this one. Glad I finally read it. It is intensely readable, fun and carries right along. Yet in retrospect, I did have some problems with the story, the plot and the storytelling. Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for Yeats, and the author's choices of quotes were perfectly nuanced to capture the internal momentum of the "rough beast" as it lurches toward transformation. The parallels to the Easter Revolution in particular were nice.
I found the primary characters well-drawn, but somehow a bit too similar to each other. I think perhaps they needed a stronger leavening of normal people to showcase them as extraordinary. Also, I found the chief antagonist implausible, with few credible links between his supposed motives and his actual behavior in the story. I loved the internal diaries and insights into rationale behind behaviors, however over-rational they seemed to me. I think after-the-fact memoir-writing would be more idiosyncratic for each individual from whom we catch glimpses. Would they all be self-critical and introspective? I doubt it. I'd expect some rose-colored restrospectives.
This book reads as two interconnected stories. The first feels a bit stifling in tone, as the protagonist is caught up in the stiffly autocratic upper class on one hand and rabble-rousing with the proles on the other hand. The inevitable coup comes as no surprise, but the outcome does. The hero unexpectedly runs away, and not to fight another day. That, of course, enables the second half of the book.
The second part charts the journey of the hero later in life. Yet he is unexpectedly passive in action and active in repose. It reads like a fun space opera, yet the interpersonal relationships are pregnant with potential. Most are intriguing and yet not completely resolved. We are left with many questions, despite the ultimate resolution of the the primary character's tortures in transition.
Emma Bull's later books are better in many ways, but this will have a special place in my affections.
I found the primary characters well-drawn, but somehow a bit too similar to each other. I think perhaps they needed a stronger leavening of normal people to showcase them as extraordinary. Also, I found the chief antagonist implausible, with few credible links between his supposed motives and his actual behavior in the story. I loved the internal diaries and insights into rationale behind behaviors, however over-rational they seemed to me. I think after-the-fact memoir-writing would be more idiosyncratic for each individual from whom we catch glimpses. Would they all be self-critical and introspective? I doubt it. I'd expect some rose-colored restrospectives.
This book reads as two interconnected stories. The first feels a bit stifling in tone, as the protagonist is caught up in the stiffly autocratic upper class on one hand and rabble-rousing with the proles on the other hand. The inevitable coup comes as no surprise, but the outcome does. The hero unexpectedly runs away, and not to fight another day. That, of course, enables the second half of the book.
The second part charts the journey of the hero later in life. Yet he is unexpectedly passive in action and active in repose. It reads like a fun space opera, yet the interpersonal relationships are pregnant with potential. Most are intriguing and yet not completely resolved. We are left with many questions, despite the ultimate resolution of the the primary character's tortures in transition.
Emma Bull's later books are better in many ways, but this will have a special place in my affections.
June 9, 2010
Part one" of this book gives us Niki, a prince on a well-established colony world heavily influenced by Welsh culture (but not the Welsh culture that one usually finds in fantasy novels - more like that of modern Britain.) 19-year-old Niki has been a typically self-centered teenager, but when he returns from summer vacation to find the political situation in his city rapidly deteriorating, he finds a new sense of responsibility. But it seems that it may be his family responsible for the troubles, and finds himself associating with some dangerous elements amongst the "common people."
This part of the book was a well-done and absorbing political intrigue, and I was looking forward to the unraveling of the twists and turns... when it all came to a drastic end rather abruptly.
"Part two" starts with Niki again, between 5-10 years later. He's left his past totally behind, and realized his dream of becoming a space pilot. However, he's done this by signing up for an experimental procedure that depends on both hardware and drugs to meld the pilot with his ship. Unfortunately, the drugs cause a degenerative condition - and so far, none of the experimental subjects have lived more than five years. Bitter and desperate, when Niki is approached by a famous interstellar pop star and asked to accompany him on a desperate and illegal quest that reminds Niki of his youth, he signs up for the job. However, more than just memories will be back to haunt him....
Bull ties up the seeming discrepancy between the two parts well at the end - it works, but I still found the abrupt shift a bit jarring.
Still, this was a well-written and enjoyable book - a bit darker and more introspective than much 'space opera,' but still an entertaining, action-filled story.
This part of the book was a well-done and absorbing political intrigue, and I was looking forward to the unraveling of the twists and turns... when it all came to a drastic end rather abruptly.
"Part two" starts with Niki again, between 5-10 years later. He's left his past totally behind, and realized his dream of becoming a space pilot. However, he's done this by signing up for an experimental procedure that depends on both hardware and drugs to meld the pilot with his ship. Unfortunately, the drugs cause a degenerative condition - and so far, none of the experimental subjects have lived more than five years. Bitter and desperate, when Niki is approached by a famous interstellar pop star and asked to accompany him on a desperate and illegal quest that reminds Niki of his youth, he signs up for the job. However, more than just memories will be back to haunt him....
Bull ties up the seeming discrepancy between the two parts well at the end - it works, but I still found the abrupt shift a bit jarring.
Still, this was a well-written and enjoyable book - a bit darker and more introspective than much 'space opera,' but still an entertaining, action-filled story.
April 21, 2009
One of those things where I accidentally read the back and I shouldn't have. So I knew that most of these characters I was coming to know and enjoy in the first half of the book were going to be offed, though I didn't expect it to take so long, and I think that dulled the effect.
Sort of an odd experience all the way through; I understood by the end what the author was doing with some of the structural oddities, and that they had to be that way and were probably brilliant, but they still made the reading less absorbing. (Like the fact that it took so long for the relevance of the first half of the book to come around again (it does, which makes good story, but the fact that it takes a while gives you a sense of the main character's experience, which makes literary story), or the weird interlude of Jhari-first-person thingy right in the middle, right where you're supposed to be going oh my god! most of the characters just died! and suddenly here's this other character with a totally different and less sympathetic voice telling the story?, and I can see why that distance is narratively necessary, but it nearly stopped me reading (especially given that you don't, of course, realize at first that it's an interlude).)
Hits you over the head with the moral at the end more than Bull usually does, but that also was kind of necessary. Since I was sitting there going, so what? So the author not-so-subtly pointing out that 'so what?' is, in fact, the moral of the whole thing makes one realize she is smart where one might think she is silly. Or it makes you not be silly, if that is necessary.
Sort of an odd experience all the way through; I understood by the end what the author was doing with some of the structural oddities, and that they had to be that way and were probably brilliant, but they still made the reading less absorbing. (Like the fact that it took so long for the relevance of the first half of the book to come around again (it does, which makes good story, but the fact that it takes a while gives you a sense of the main character's experience, which makes literary story), or the weird interlude of Jhari-first-person thingy right in the middle, right where you're supposed to be going oh my god! most of the characters just died! and suddenly here's this other character with a totally different and less sympathetic voice telling the story?, and I can see why that distance is narratively necessary, but it nearly stopped me reading (especially given that you don't, of course, realize at first that it's an interlude).)
Hits you over the head with the moral at the end more than Bull usually does, but that also was kind of necessary. Since I was sitting there going, so what? So the author not-so-subtly pointing out that 'so what?' is, in fact, the moral of the whole thing makes one realize she is smart where one might think she is silly. Or it makes you not be silly, if that is necessary.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 14, 2014
After his royal family and homeworld are betrayed, Niki Falcon (né Glyndwr) becomes a gestalt pilot. The good news is that he can directly plug into his starship and fly it with his mind; the bad news is he's now a junkie with five years before inevitable madness and death. He's at the end of that allotted time when he gets the opportunity for one last score: a dangerous passenger, deadly opposition, and a ghost from Glyndwr's past. Also, W. B. Yeats.
Falcon starts slow but gradually builds into something rich and unbearable -- and then skips ten years forward for the sake of dissolving into a generic pulp-SF mess. I don't know if I would hate the second half of the book as much as I do if it weren't for the gradual beauty of the first half. But then, it's the second half of the book that advances the central innovative idea of gestalt pilots, who shoot up regularly and love their ships and kill themselves rather than face mental disintegration. The first half of the book, in which Niki is a young and tempestuous princeling in a techno-Celtic civilization, isn't particularly exciting and wouldn't rate a novel by itself. And yet there's some great writing in the first half, and Niki's family develops effortless pathos. By contrast, the second half of the novel feels like one of those yellowing paperbacks with a neon-orange rocketship on the cover that you can still buy for a quarter. Aside from the gestalt pilots, it's straight Saturday-morning space serial. After that first half, I was hoping for something more.
Falcon starts slow but gradually builds into something rich and unbearable -- and then skips ten years forward for the sake of dissolving into a generic pulp-SF mess. I don't know if I would hate the second half of the book as much as I do if it weren't for the gradual beauty of the first half. But then, it's the second half of the book that advances the central innovative idea of gestalt pilots, who shoot up regularly and love their ships and kill themselves rather than face mental disintegration. The first half of the book, in which Niki is a young and tempestuous princeling in a techno-Celtic civilization, isn't particularly exciting and wouldn't rate a novel by itself. And yet there's some great writing in the first half, and Niki's family develops effortless pathos. By contrast, the second half of the novel feels like one of those yellowing paperbacks with a neon-orange rocketship on the cover that you can still buy for a quarter. Aside from the gestalt pilots, it's straight Saturday-morning space serial. After that first half, I was hoping for something more.
July 17, 2011
I stumbled upon this book in a used bookstore--I loved Emma Bull's War for the Oaks and Territory but had never heard of this one until I saw it on the shelf. I was really excited to find it, but felt like it wasn't as amazing as War for the Oaks. The first half of the book takes place much earlier than the second half, so I spent a good while waiting for the "main plot" to start (because Part I seemed mostly unrelated to the plot blurb I'd read on the back of the book, so I felt like I was trying to get through the set-up.) Looking back, of course, it was important to have all that information from Part I for Part II but it's hard to get attached to a setting and characters when you expect that they won't be around for very long.
My impatience and short attention span aside, I did enjoy this book. The narrative jumps around a bit in Part II and you don't get as much action from Niki's perspective, which is understandable but felt a bit too sporadic at times. The ending felt a bit rushed, and by the end there was hardly any narration from Niki's POV, probably because the author was withholding certain details to keep the ending a surprise.
The science fiction behind the gestalt pilots and the gaming was pretty interesting, and of course I always enjoy reading future scifi/space stories that were written in the 80s, before everyone had laptops and smart phones. Overall I enjoyed this book but it took me awhile to get into the story.
My impatience and short attention span aside, I did enjoy this book. The narrative jumps around a bit in Part II and you don't get as much action from Niki's perspective, which is understandable but felt a bit too sporadic at times. The ending felt a bit rushed, and by the end there was hardly any narration from Niki's POV, probably because the author was withholding certain details to keep the ending a surprise.
The science fiction behind the gestalt pilots and the gaming was pretty interesting, and of course I always enjoy reading future scifi/space stories that were written in the 80s, before everyone had laptops and smart phones. Overall I enjoyed this book but it took me awhile to get into the story.
July 20, 2015
Falcon was half of two really great books. If this had been published today, there's no way Emma Bull would have gotten away with smashing together two half-novels and calling it a day; in our current environment of "the longer the series the better," it would have been at least a trilogy.
And I'm the kind of person who's buying those long series, frankly. I would have bought a trilogy about Dominic Glyndwr in a heartbeat. I'm disappointed there isn't one. I want a full book about Dominic on Cymru, Dominic as a gestalt pilot, and Dominic ... who he is at the end. Those books would have rated higher than a 3. Those books may have earned a space on my shelf, if only because Welsh culture is so rarely reflected in scifi.
If you like , , and , you'll quite enjoy this. Just go into it knowing that you're essentially reading two novellas that feature the same character.
And I'm the kind of person who's buying those long series, frankly. I would have bought a trilogy about Dominic Glyndwr in a heartbeat. I'm disappointed there isn't one. I want a full book about Dominic on Cymru, Dominic as a gestalt pilot, and Dominic ... who he is at the end. Those books would have rated higher than a 3. Those books may have earned a space on my shelf, if only because Welsh culture is so rarely reflected in scifi.
If you like , , and , you'll quite enjoy this. Just go into it knowing that you're essentially reading two novellas that feature the same character.
July 27, 2015
On the upside, Emma Bull writes beautifully and competently. On the downside, she has a tendency to be on the downside--to write beautifully about tragedy and despair and things going terribly, horribly wrong.
Which is why, when I was a bit down emotionally because of some pain issues, I stopped reading this at about 92%, since the last thing I need in that mood is tragedy. It turns out that I stopped just before the most tragic part--but it also turned out that, immediately after that tragic part, the story takes a previously unsignalled turn for the positive, via what amounts to a deus ex machina (because it, too, struck me as completely unsignalled, and also unlikely).
Apart from that, it's wonderfully done, though it's not my favourite kind of thing.
Which is why, when I was a bit down emotionally because of some pain issues, I stopped reading this at about 92%, since the last thing I need in that mood is tragedy. It turns out that I stopped just before the most tragic part--but it also turned out that, immediately after that tragic part, the story takes a previously unsignalled turn for the positive, via what amounts to a deus ex machina (because it, too, struck me as completely unsignalled, and also unlikely).
Apart from that, it's wonderfully done, though it's not my favourite kind of thing.
August 20, 2008
A denser, more complex novel than I typically read, this sf novel published nearly 20 years ago is about Dominic Emrys Ieuan Glynwr, Viscount Harlech, Prince of Cymru, who was second in line to the throne of this Welsh- governed planet. But all of Niki’s family was assassinated and he got away.
Years later, we meet him again as Niki Falcon, the longest- living gestalt pilot in the verse. Gestalt pilots have implants and take drugs to become one with/ navigate their ships, which are capable of amazing feats. But gestalt pilots have a man- made degenerative disease. As Prince, Niki tried to save the Cymru, as a pilot he is also capable of great things.
Years later, we meet him again as Niki Falcon, the longest- living gestalt pilot in the verse. Gestalt pilots have implants and take drugs to become one with/ navigate their ships, which are capable of amazing feats. But gestalt pilots have a man- made degenerative disease. As Prince, Niki tried to save the Cymru, as a pilot he is also capable of great things.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 23, 2015
I see this as two novellas, one a sequel to the other, and wonder why the author felt that they should be so rudely forced together. They're very different in style, in general sensibility, and in types of character. And the second part of the story is better than the telling--I just can't see how switching among narrators benefits the episode. I know the author's mostly a musician, but also Chrysander's flights of musical abstraction seemed jarring to me...a total change of narrative type and a breakdown in the pacing--as if certain passages were just cut and pasted from another story entirely.
Still, good bones.
Still, good bones.
November 13, 2011
4 1/2 Stars,
This was an interesting book, full of wonderful ideas and prose and characters that packed quite a bit of narrative punch for such a short novel. I will look for more work by Emma Bull, she is a wonderful writer and a bit of a philosopher, I think. I was left wishing that she'd developed the story a little more - into a larger book or a pair of books. The ideas and characters were certainly worthy of it - but part of the story's charm was in its brevity, so perhaps author knows best.
This was an interesting book, full of wonderful ideas and prose and characters that packed quite a bit of narrative punch for such a short novel. I will look for more work by Emma Bull, she is a wonderful writer and a bit of a philosopher, I think. I was left wishing that she'd developed the story a little more - into a larger book or a pair of books. The ideas and characters were certainly worthy of it - but part of the story's charm was in its brevity, so perhaps author knows best.
September 18, 2012
emma bull delivers!
this book departs from her usual urban fantasy into science fiction.
as usual her characters are layered and her plots come together to make sense of one another in the end.
in my opinion her pacing is more solid in this book than it was in finder or in territory, and she explores leaving more information unrevealed through the bulk of the book.
overall, i think this works for her, and builds a suspense that kept me intrigued all the way through.
this book departs from her usual urban fantasy into science fiction.
as usual her characters are layered and her plots come together to make sense of one another in the end.
in my opinion her pacing is more solid in this book than it was in finder or in territory, and she explores leaving more information unrevealed through the bulk of the book.
overall, i think this works for her, and builds a suspense that kept me intrigued all the way through.
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