Falling Free | ||||||||
Lois McMaster Bujold | ||||||||
Narrated by Grover Gardner, unabridged | ||||||||
Blackstone Audio, 8 hours, 45 minutes | ||||||||
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A review by Nicki Gerlach
The other members of the Cay project, particularly its boss, Bruce Van Atta, see nothing wrong with
treating the Quaddies as property. After all, hasn't GalacTech spent incredible amounts of money
creating, raising, and housing them? But the more time Leo spends aboard the habitat, the more
uncomfortable he grows with the Quaddies' nebulous legal status -- because while they're not
technically human, they are undeniably people. Although he might wish things were different, Leo
is just one man -- just an engineer -- and what can he possibly do to change things for the Quaddies?
Falling Free is one of Lois McMaster Bujold's earliest books, and it shows in the general lack of subtlety and
finesse that she would later develop. That subtlety is certainly missing from the plot, which practically
beats the reader over the head with its message of "slavery is bad, okay?" I did spend the first half of
the book shocked and disgusted by the variety of callous and cruelly dehumanizing ways the Quaddies were
treated, which I'm sure was Bujold's intent. But after a while, I started to go "yes, okay, I get it,
the Quaddies are people too; owning people is wrong; can we move on?"
It didn't help that a lot of Bujold's characterizations were also rather shallow (which is surprising,
for her). Leo was a believable if not particularly complex character, and the main Quaddies with which
he interacted all had interesting and unique personalities. Where things fell down, I thought, was with
the villain of the piece, Bruce Van Atta. He was just so unrelievedly nasty about everything that it
was hard to take him seriously as a threat, because I couldn't imagine Bujold letting him win. Just
like the plot lacked any interesting moral grey area, so too did the characters: the good guys are
good, the bad guys are bad, and that's the end of the story. And really, Graf was the only person
in the twenty-year history of the Cay project that had both a moral compass and the will to act on it? Really?
But, despite all that, I did mostly have a good time listening to Falling Free. Bujold's lively
dialogue and bright spots of wit are as present here as in any of her books. The whole thing is
very fast paced, with the second half of the book moving breathlessly from crisis to crisis. It's
a little bit more tech-heavy than I usually prefer my sci-fi, but that's only to be expected when
your main character is an engineer, and Bujold handles it smoothly. It certainly served as a
jumping-off point for thinking about some interesting questions about the ethics of genetic engineering,
some of which scientists are already beginning to face today. Grover Gardner's narration was as
enjoyable as always, managing to inject some emotional realism into the mix without over-acting.
So, while this wasn't Bujold's best book by a long shot, I'm still glad I listened to it. It's set in the
universe of the Vorkosigan Saga, but several hundred years before Cordelia Naismith or Miles Vorkosigan
show up on the scene, so it could easily be read independently of the rest of the series… although
I don't think I'd hand this one to a newcomer to Bujold's work, since it doesn't show off her skills at top form.
Nicki Gerlach is a mad scientist by day and an avid reader the rest of the time. More of her book reviews can be found at her blog, fyreflybooks.wordpress.com/. |
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