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A review by duffypratt
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
It's a prequel to the Vorkosigan novels, which deals with the founding of the quaddies. Quaddies, for those not in the know, are genetically modified people who have had their body chemistry altered to make them thrive in a zero-g environment. Also, to make them more useful, their legs have been modified to be an extra set of arms. Thus, they have four arms, but no legs. Great for zero-g; a bit cumbersome on any planet with significant gravity.
In this book, an engineer has been brought to the quaddie station. They are all basically kids or young adults, and the engineer is going to train them in space age welding. The station itself seems to be outside any system of law, and thus is governed by the law of the company, which views the quaddies as their property. The managers of the station for the most part are only interested in promoting their own careers, and care little or nothing about the modified people under their control. Moreover, the company has gone to great lengths to indoctrinate the quaddies into believing that their goal in life is to serve the company and to cooperate with each other.
This is all, more or less, fine with a few glitches. There's one quaddie who has found the joy of casual sex with two-legged shuttle pilots. And in exchange for her favors, he gives her videos and books of stuff which would not have been approved by the company. Thus, the quaddies are learning something about individuality, love and chivalry. Another pair have had their own child, and have committed the sin of becoming too attached to him, and to each other. And as a group, they have established a secret hang-out in the station where they can enjoy the little contraband they have obtained.
Despite these little problems, things seem to be going well for them. Then, it is learned that Beta Colony has invented a gravity drive which makes it possible for spaceships to create artificial gravity. This effectively tanks the quaddie project for the company, who, to cut their losses, decide to terminate the project and all the quaddies in the process. The engineer decides to try to save them, and the last third of the book describes how it happens.
Overall, I enjoyed this, but I had a few problems. First, the suspense wasn't that suspenseful. I knew going in that this was a prequel, and I knew from my other reading that quaddies were around in Miles generation. Thus, without knowing the details, I knew how this was going to end. That didn't particularly spoil it for me, and Bujold's writing was as fluid as ever. But it did remove the suspense from a book that felt like it was trying to build up the suspense.
Second, the characters, particularly the villainous ones, were decidedly flat. The book simply riffs on the cliché of the evil bureaucrat, with little or nothing behind it. The engineer was slightly more developed, and one or two of the quaddies were actually interesting. However, I'm used to fairly rich characters from the Vorkosigan books, and this book simply didn't have them. Maybe Bujold needs more space to develop her people -- I probably had the same reaction about her characters after the first of the Vorkosigan series, and I'm now judging them by the standards of how they appear in, say, Memory or A Civil Campaign.
Finally, I didn't buy the main plot mover here. The gravity drive would certainly make it more practical to send two legged people into space. So it eliminates some of the advantage that the quaddies would bring. But however it works, the gravity drive would be an energy/resource drain. The quaddies could accomplish the same work for less than a gravity driven ship. Also, people with legs are used to being on planets. The natural habitat for quaddies is in space. Thus, I don't think it's entirely clear that the quaddie project would have become an instant failure. The start up costs for it have already been expended, and the project of raising new quaddies through birth did not seem to be inordinately expensive. Thus, in the middle of the book, I was asked to swallow a big plot mover that simply didn't make that much sense to me.
Then, as the book reaches the end, it fails to address a couple of fairly obvious points. The quaddies are heading to an asteroid belt, where they can start their own society. They've been saved by a handful of two legged humans how are still with them. What will happen to them? The engineer is not adapted for the long term zero g environment that he has consigned himself to. And yet the book never even addresses this. In addition, the real challenges for this group are just beginning, and how they go about establishing their new society would be fascinating, but it's something Bujold simply never bothers to take up. Thus, as the book ends, I felt like I was wanting more, which is typically a good thing. But here, I know that there simply isn't going to be any more, and I felt a little bit like I was left hanging. The book's ending is satisfying, since they get their freedom, but there's more to life than that.
In this book, an engineer has been brought to the quaddie station. They are all basically kids or young adults, and the engineer is going to train them in space age welding. The station itself seems to be outside any system of law, and thus is governed by the law of the company, which views the quaddies as their property. The managers of the station for the most part are only interested in promoting their own careers, and care little or nothing about the modified people under their control. Moreover, the company has gone to great lengths to indoctrinate the quaddies into believing that their goal in life is to serve the company and to cooperate with each other.
This is all, more or less, fine with a few glitches. There's one quaddie who has found the joy of casual sex with two-legged shuttle pilots. And in exchange for her favors, he gives her videos and books of stuff which would not have been approved by the company. Thus, the quaddies are learning something about individuality, love and chivalry. Another pair have had their own child, and have committed the sin of becoming too attached to him, and to each other. And as a group, they have established a secret hang-out in the station where they can enjoy the little contraband they have obtained.
Despite these little problems, things seem to be going well for them. Then, it is learned that Beta Colony has invented a gravity drive which makes it possible for spaceships to create artificial gravity. This effectively tanks the quaddie project for the company, who, to cut their losses, decide to terminate the project and all the quaddies in the process. The engineer decides to try to save them, and the last third of the book describes how it happens.
Overall, I enjoyed this, but I had a few problems. First, the suspense wasn't that suspenseful. I knew going in that this was a prequel, and I knew from my other reading that quaddies were around in Miles generation. Thus, without knowing the details, I knew how this was going to end. That didn't particularly spoil it for me, and Bujold's writing was as fluid as ever. But it did remove the suspense from a book that felt like it was trying to build up the suspense.
Second, the characters, particularly the villainous ones, were decidedly flat. The book simply riffs on the cliché of the evil bureaucrat, with little or nothing behind it. The engineer was slightly more developed, and one or two of the quaddies were actually interesting. However, I'm used to fairly rich characters from the Vorkosigan books, and this book simply didn't have them. Maybe Bujold needs more space to develop her people -- I probably had the same reaction about her characters after the first of the Vorkosigan series, and I'm now judging them by the standards of how they appear in, say, Memory or A Civil Campaign.
Finally, I didn't buy the main plot mover here. The gravity drive would certainly make it more practical to send two legged people into space. So it eliminates some of the advantage that the quaddies would bring. But however it works, the gravity drive would be an energy/resource drain. The quaddies could accomplish the same work for less than a gravity driven ship. Also, people with legs are used to being on planets. The natural habitat for quaddies is in space. Thus, I don't think it's entirely clear that the quaddie project would have become an instant failure. The start up costs for it have already been expended, and the project of raising new quaddies through birth did not seem to be inordinately expensive. Thus, in the middle of the book, I was asked to swallow a big plot mover that simply didn't make that much sense to me.
Then, as the book reaches the end, it fails to address a couple of fairly obvious points. The quaddies are heading to an asteroid belt, where they can start their own society. They've been saved by a handful of two legged humans how are still with them. What will happen to them? The engineer is not adapted for the long term zero g environment that he has consigned himself to. And yet the book never even addresses this. In addition, the real challenges for this group are just beginning, and how they go about establishing their new society would be fascinating, but it's something Bujold simply never bothers to take up. Thus, as the book ends, I felt like I was wanting more, which is typically a good thing. But here, I know that there simply isn't going to be any more, and I felt a little bit like I was left hanging. The book's ending is satisfying, since they get their freedom, but there's more to life than that.