Falling for Falling Free

Bruce Van Atta was complaining about a log jam of messages in his corporate email account back in 1988. Why? Because he was a GalacTech Exec in Lois McMaster Bujold's Falling Free .

The Nebula award winning book showed me that corporate ethics were just as much a concern in the 1980's as they are today. It's just that I was too busy learning to ride my bike to pay attention.

For those who are fans of the Miles Vorkosigan series, know that Falling Free is a stand-alone, though it does take place in the same universe that will later host Miles Vorkosigan.

Falling Free was an engaging, page-turning read. I loved the way the engineer protagonist was thrust into a very human and political situation completely out of the realm of his expertise. Leo Graff's transformation is brought about by meeting the quaddies, bioengineered space station workers who are being mistreated and manipulated by GalacTech. The plight of the quaddies thrusts the no-nonsense engineer into the thick of corporate politics. But once Leo commmits himself to helping the quaddies, his engineering problem solving capabilities and nuts and bolts expertise are absoultely vital to saving them.

I had such a great time reading this book, but I do have one complaint. The main antagonist, GalachTech Executive Bruce Van Atta, was a one-dimensional bad guy. He was greedy, lazy, unethical, and even impolite. I would have appreciated a more sympathetic antagonist, doing something he knew was wrong in order to protect something or someone he cared about. The possibilities for Van Atta's motivation were endless. He could have been trying to get home to his wife, keeping GalachTech from firing him and taking away his retirement benefits, covering up an accidental mistake earlier in his career. Throughout the read I felt very strongly that Leo Graff, the quaddies, and their supporters had so much to lose, and that all Van Atta had to lose was his puffed up pride.

That said, if you're looking for an exciting and intelligent science fiction experience, you'll absolutely fall for Falling Free .