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In the Lion's Review
Feb. 1st, 2012 02:32 pmHi,
So I just finished whipping through In the Lion's Mouth my Michael Flynn. This is the third volume in his "Celtic Space Opera" series (the first two being The January Dancer and Up Jim River). As usual, Mr. Flynn turns in a fun, fast-paced read marred only by his chronic inability to actually bring anything to a conclusion.
So, the basic set up is that humanity has expanded throughout space and while cultures have mish-mashed into one another, a distinctly Celtic tone prevails over everything else. Superluminal travel is accomplished by "roads" or "rivers" of space that move faster relative to normal space. Science and technology is so advanced that much of it has passed into myth or lore -- it all rests on deep foundation no longer fully understood. Human-space is divided between the Confederation (seen as the "bad guys" so far in this series) and the League (seen as the "good guys").
In this particular volume, we follow Donovan, a man whose mind has been splintered into several distinct personalities, each with a specialization helping him to be an effective Shadow (a spy/assassin for the Confederation), but the experiment wasn't much of a success and he's spent the first two books being relatively ineffective.
At the end of the last book, he gets kidnapped and taken back into Confederation space to help participate in a civil war between members of the Shadow and their even more mysterious masters Those of Name.
The book is packed full of great ideas and world-building snippets and dazzling bits of wordplay and well-rendered action scenes and it's just a treat to read. The darn thing ends on a huge cliff-hanger though and while I'll probably be suckered into buying the next book, it's getting a little old.
If you've been following along, I'd recommend picking this one up and if you haven't, start with The January Dancer it's really good and you'll have more fun following along from the start.
later
Tom
So I just finished whipping through In the Lion's Mouth my Michael Flynn. This is the third volume in his "Celtic Space Opera" series (the first two being The January Dancer and Up Jim River). As usual, Mr. Flynn turns in a fun, fast-paced read marred only by his chronic inability to actually bring anything to a conclusion.
So, the basic set up is that humanity has expanded throughout space and while cultures have mish-mashed into one another, a distinctly Celtic tone prevails over everything else. Superluminal travel is accomplished by "roads" or "rivers" of space that move faster relative to normal space. Science and technology is so advanced that much of it has passed into myth or lore -- it all rests on deep foundation no longer fully understood. Human-space is divided between the Confederation (seen as the "bad guys" so far in this series) and the League (seen as the "good guys").
In this particular volume, we follow Donovan, a man whose mind has been splintered into several distinct personalities, each with a specialization helping him to be an effective Shadow (a spy/assassin for the Confederation), but the experiment wasn't much of a success and he's spent the first two books being relatively ineffective.
At the end of the last book, he gets kidnapped and taken back into Confederation space to help participate in a civil war between members of the Shadow and their even more mysterious masters Those of Name.
The book is packed full of great ideas and world-building snippets and dazzling bits of wordplay and well-rendered action scenes and it's just a treat to read. The darn thing ends on a huge cliff-hanger though and while I'll probably be suckered into buying the next book, it's getting a little old.
If you've been following along, I'd recommend picking this one up and if you haven't, start with The January Dancer it's really good and you'll have more fun following along from the start.
later
Tom
