Book Review: Falcon by Emma Bull
Dominic “Niki” Emrys Ieuan Glyndwr is a prince of Cymru, a backwater planet primarily settled by people of Welsh descent who’d finally won their freedom from the English. He and his brilliant geneticist mother Morwenna have been on a long summer break from the press of palace affairs and politics before it’s time for the young prince to go off-planet for pilot training.
When they return to the capital city, it’s suffering unrest. New laws crippled one of the biggest employers on the planet, causing a surge in unemployment and subsequent economic downturn. The government, led by Niki’s Uncle Pedr, has cracked down on dissenters, causing even more resentment among the citizens, particularly in the lower economic strata. While Niki has never cared about being responsible for governing or the maneuvers of politics, he finds that he can’t ignore the suffering of the people.
Niki goes out into the community, and almost inadvertently finds himself the darling of the resistance for his minimal efforts to help. The increasingly erratic Uncle Pedr thinks Niki is plotting against him to take the throne. But perhaps he’s looking for the wrong traitor.
This 1989 novel is the second by Minnesota author and musician Emma Bull, following up her better-known War for the Oaks. It’s in two parts, only the second of which is on the back cover blurb, making that a huge spoiler.
The first half sets up a lot of family politics and character relationships that for the most part don’t matter after the break as things go horribly wrong for Niki.
After a short chapter that hints at events between the two halves, we rejoin the story ten years later.
Niki Falcon is now a gestalt pilot, genetically engineered, cybernetically enhanced, and addicted to drugs that give him superhuman senses and reaction time. He’s also dying, the last of the gestalt pilots as the project never did lick the problems these enhancements cause.
He’s approached for one last job by Chrysander Harris, a singer/songwriter from the planet Lamia. It seems that Lamia’s been placed under Silence by the Concorde, the interplanetary government. Chrysander believes that if he can get back to the planet he can help, but he will need the galaxy’s best pilot to get past the Concorde blockade, and that’s Niki and his special gestalt ship, the Gerfalcon.
Niki’s understandably reluctant, since he can tell that Chrysander is hiding several secrets of his own, but he does have a bone to pick with the Concorde, and the musician is being pursued by Special Services agent Jhari Sabayan, once Niki’s lover. With the aid of second-best pilot Laura Brass, the pair are on their way.
The first part of the book is tight and suspenseful, but the sudden change makes the rest of the plot feel a bit disjointed. For most of the second part, the first half of the story is just Niki’s tragic backstory, seemingly irrelevant until near the end when a couple of plot elements suddenly reoccur. A lot of Niki’s backstory after the change is skimmed over to get to the new plot, told by someone who is anonymous for a while.
And then the big reveal is…mostly offstage, with characters figuring out what must have happened to get the results they’re seeing.
Most chapters have an epigram by W.B. Yeats, with “The Second Coming” being the poem most directly relevant to the story.
Content note: Lethal violence, including the death of a pregnant woman. Death of horses. Suicide in the backstory, and Niki has suicidal thoughts. Torture. Drug abuse. Niki and a couple of other characters have had extramarital sex, but nothing happens in-story. Older teens should be able to handle this, but it’s a book for adults.
People who are reading for the Welsh content are likely to be disappointed; it’s mostly some mild set dressing.
I’m going to say this book was…okay. There’s some interesting ideas, but the best character is Laura Brass, and she’s barely in it. Recommended to Emma Bull fans who’ve previously missed this one, and those who find cybernetically-enhanced protagonists interesting.
