Advance Review Power! Michael Flynn’s “The January Dancer” (TQP0099)
[A new review from noted book critic Christopher "Bookworm" Hsiang, penned from his cell in Folsom Prison.]
[This review appears in a slightly different form in Dispatches From the Border, the newsletter for Borderlands Books.]
The venerable Space Opera has seen an increasing resurgence in the last decade or so with such authors as Neal Asher, Justina Robson, Alastair Reynolds, and Peter F. Hamilton. We have thrilled to descriptions of galaxy-spanning civilizations dominated by the vast, cool Artificial Intelligences and amoral transhumans with godlike abilities and motivations nearly unfathomable by us, their merely mortal ancestors. In The January Dancer (Tor, 350 pages), Michael Flynn, a multiple Hugo Award nominee and longtime contributor to Analog, offers a more humanist approach to The New Space Opera that hearkens back to writers of the mid-20th century, while keeping a modern style and staying grounded in current scientific understanding.
The eponymous January Dancer is an ancient alien artifact accidentally discovered by the typical hard-scrabble crew of one of those tramp cargo spaceships that always seem to be tripping over such things in the far edges of space. The Dancer quickly becomes a Maltese Falcon flying at the speed of light from owner to owner as ruthless forces vie for its possession. Decadent aristocrats and bloodthirsty pirates; interstellar trading corporations and rag-tag rebel fighters; highly-trained secret agents and desperate gutterpunk thieves–all are caught up in the music. Like the Golden Apple of Eris the enigmatic prize leaves a trail of broken souls, treachery, and bloodshed across the star roads. How’s that for good old-fashioned fun?
About those star roads: he’s come up with an original way to move his players among scores of different worlds that blends hyperspace wormholes and superluminal travel. Ships travel along carefully plotted lines between certain stars where light travels much faster than the normal “flat space” we hang out in. Along these roads one can travel between far flung planets in weeks yet never break Officer Einstein’s speed limit. More of a loophole than a wormhole. And really, it’s not nearly as goofy as fellow hard science-fiction author Vernor Vinge’s “Zones of Thought” idea from A Fire upon the Deep (a really great novel, but I digress (a lot)). There is a catch to this method: should you graze the narrow embankments of these roads your ship “would become a brief but spectacular burst of Cerenkov radiation.” Ka-blooey! Navigating along these courses is not so much a Yankee Clipper plying the trade winds as it is white-water rafting down class-five rapids.
Mr. Flynn has given these roads names like the Champs-Élysées, the Silk Road, Palisades Parkway, and–yes–Electric Avenue. These are only a handful of examples of the wordplay he indulges in. Wit abounds in these pages, ranging from subtle or dry to sparkling and ultimately scathing. But do not be mistaken, a wacky farce this is not. The main characters have depth with surprising complexity. They banter while set on daunting tasks with grim purpose–like combat-hardened troops or emergency room personnel.
He also uses inventive linguistic mash-ups that would make James Joyce howl with joy or fury. In the volume of space where the plot is set the main language, Gaelactic Standard is based on Irish and influences all the other diverse planetary cultures. Snippets of Irish vocabulary turns up often, especially in the framing story along with observations on traditional Celtic music and the nature of storytelling itself. The descendants of the last generations to leave Earth speak a bewildering patois of English, Spanish, Arabic and a thick olio of tongues from the Far East and the Subcontinent of that fabled lost world. The Terrans have scattered to a hundred worlds into ghettos where they are permitted to beg for work and be sneered at for their outlandish customs. At night in the tenements and warrens, away from the oppressive “eatees” they gather for supper of tkka masala, hodawgs with sarkrat, and eye-said krim for dessert. They yearn for home none of them have seen and, in echos of previous Diasporas, they toast each other with, “Next year, a Hajj on Earth!”
The book-jacket blurb compares The January Dancer to the works of the great old Smiths, E.E. “Doc” and Cordwainer (yes, I know they weren’t related). I detected some Bester, as well, and even a bit of Asimov and Frank Herbert. It’s not quite up to the grand scale of the Galactic Empire or Dune books but there is the rich tapestry of Human civilizations and wheels within wheels… plans within plans. This is not the best book you will read all year (unless you only read one book a year, in which case you should really try harder). It is a very well-crafted, entertaining novel by a clever and experienced writer. I would especially recommend it to fans of the Firefly franchise and suspect it might be intended for them. I do not know if any sequels are on his set list but if Mr. Flynn calls the tune I wouldn’t mind another spin around the floor.
