Book #4 in the Pip and Flinx series.After a years absence, Flinx returns to Moth and a very brief visit with Mother Mastiff. He has decided to pick up looking for his father and after talking to Mother Mastiff he learns she wasn’t the only bidder all those years ago when he was sold. His travels take him into the bowls of Moths other bureaucracy, the auction houses, where a kindly gentleman recalls a giant of a man with white hair and a gold earring - and a minidrag like Pip.
Shortly after receiving this information, Flinx obtains the alien Abalamahalamatanra - Ab for short - and heads out for the planet Alaspin. Alaspin is the homeworld of the minidragons and Flinx is looking forward to finding his father and seeing his pets homeworld. But things don’t go quite according to plan.
This was a pretty decent sequel. It moved right along, it had an interesting alien, and it brought back a couple of likable characters that were introduced in a previous book. What I didn’t care for was the plot seemed to really ping about. The book opened with a looming "big catastrophe" that was threatening three highly populated planets. Then we picked up with Flinx and his quest. At the end, well, the two plots came together and "big imminent catastrophe" well, was easily and somewhat accidentally solved.
Okay, I’m going to ruin the story line a bit here...they stopped a rouge black hole from eating the three planets by finding a mythical ultra-weapon left by a long since deceased race (which they just happened to leave behind) and the protagonists managed to set off at the right time to crate a white hole which sucked the matter out of the black hole and created a new galaxy.
Um...yeah...right.
Still, I enjoyed the book and will be reading the next one.
2 comments:
I've never read any of the Pip & Flinx novels, but I find Foster's work is usually pretty reliably decent. One I liked was The Mocking Program. The explanation in the end was pretty stupid, but the characters and story were otherwise quite fun, and I'd happily read another about the same protagonist.
They've been pretty decent overall. This one had the science "hiccup", but I can forgive the author for that.
Mostly I enjoy them because they are, well, consistently good and a quick read in between the weightier volumes.
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