n economic downturn is a bad time to find out your planet's been slated
for demolition. Still reeling from a stock-market crash and a
depression--euphemistically called "the Dip"--exacerbated by government
overreaction and corporate short-sightedness, the people of 21st century
Earth have trouble assimilating the news that some alien race has targeted
an asteroid straight for them. The very resources needed to mount a mission
to deflect the cosmic missile--nicknamed "the Bean"--are battered or broken.
Space-faring conglomerates are folding, and even the Academy is shutting
down, supposedly temporarily. Meanwhile, space defense has become a political
football, subject to the machinations of a dangerous demagogue.
Through the single-minded perseverance of people like Mariesa Van Huyten,
a moneyed matriarch, and Roberta Carson, an outspoken webcaster, the
moribund Planetary Defense Committee slowly starts to breathe again. Like
moths to flame, a crackerjack team assembles itself around a projected
three-ship mission to deflect the Bean. At first, self-satisfied software
genius Jimmy Poole is along for the financing, but it's not long before he's
banging out code to support the mission. Chase Coughlin, the crusty, lusty
space veteran, helps show the ropes to Jacinta Rosario, a hot but chaste
young pilot.
After all the planning, plotting, test flights, falling out and
reconciliations, the ships are finally on their way. They knew that the
asteroids had been turbo-equipped by the unknown aliens, but they were
startled to find a portentous door leading into the traveling rock. Inside,
they find a control room. Now the all-star team is faced with a new set of
choices: Do they blow up the asteroid, use the demolitions they brought with
them to deflect it away from Earth--or try to figure out the controls and
fly the Bean home?
Disaster with a not-so-deep impact
Michael Flynn seems to think he's channeling Robert Heinlein, but the
picture is coming in a little fuzzy. The echoes are there--for example,
there's the backdrop of space as politics. Futuristic slang neologisms, some
rather more successful than others, recall Stranger in a Strange
Land. The characters are colorful and earthy in a Heinleinesque sort of
way. But it doesn't add up. The dark political and economic clouds that are
so foreboding of texture in the first chapters fade into mere set
decoration, and then vanish entirely. There's none of the irony of the
meaningless political standoff of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010, much less
the human drama of the rebellion in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. The
hurdles in the way of Earth's ability to meet the threat seem to drop away,
and the second half of the book descends into space opera.
The characters are vending-machine issue and the plot develops
perfunctorily. Jacinta is exceptionally beautiful, supremely capable and
secretly vulnerable, just like every single spacefaring woman of the
future. Naturally, Chase, the space dog with a heart of gold, starts to
notice her once they're locked in the vacuum of space. And it's no surprise
when the story deposits us in front of that old cliché: the aliens'
mysterious door. Suspense is defused early by the trivializing nickname
"Bean," and neither Flynn nor his characters displays any curiosity
whatsoever about the Visitors who aimed this rock at Earth in the first
place.
Falling Stars is the fourth book in a series, continuing the
stories of characters previously met in Firestar, Rogue Star
and Lodestar. But there's little sense of suspense or drama carried
forward from previous stories, while newcomers might feel some characters
are sketchily introduced or are popping in for an unnecessary cameo. The
lightweight climax might suffice for one book, but not for four.
