1993 SF, last of its trilogy. Saint Butterflies-are-free Peace Sincere
has a new job: stop the war by killing the man who's starting it. But
of course things are going to get much more complicated.
We're a very long way from the uncomplicated adventure of
Hellflower here. And the resolutions aren't going to be simple
either: sure, you can line up with faction A to get the tools you need
to take on faction B, but what's A going to do when it doesn't have
the conflict with B to distract its attention?
And even when you have access to a power that can simply make things
better for everyone… that may not be the right answer.
There's a straightforwardly evil AI, but that's not the main threat.
There's a body-possessing alien, but that's not the main threat
either. The main threat may well end up being human nature, which it's
quite hard to outfly or outfight.
This series has expanded from caper to cosmic stakes and it's done it
without showing the seams. St.Cyr's voice is a big part of that,
keeping things rooted in reality even when they affect matters on a
huge scale. The writing, Runyonesque but with an SF twist, can be a
little work at times, but context gives plenty of clues for the
obscure slang terms, and St.Cyr's choices of phrase can be important
in themselves.
The story didn't go at all where I expected, but it went to
interesting places, and I'm glad finally to have read the whole thing.
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.