Falling Free (Lois McMaster Bujold, 1987) is a sci-fi adventure novel set on-board a floating space habitat called, er, the Habitat. Leo Graf, master safety engineer, comes to the Habitat to teach a group of a thousand genetically-modified humans known as “quaddies”, conceived in a uterus replacement machine and born on the Habitat. The quaddies defining characteristic is their lack of legs: In their place, they have another set of arms.
As is the case for any fantasy or sci-fi race that is created by another, they are slaves. They don’t realise this, but it is clear that their creators, the company GalacTech, consider them accountable assets rather than people. The novel revolves around Leo’s efforts to free the quaddies from servitude, and later threat of termination, at the likely cost of his 18 year career for the company.
Coming into Falling Free having never read any of the author’s other works, I did not realise the novel was part of a cycle. In fact, Falling Free is the fourth novel written in Bujold’s Vorkosigan cycle, but the first chronologically. This is reflected in the Goodreads and Amazon listings, who number the novel as the fourth and first in the series respectively. The author has advised that she feels the novels are best read in chronological order, so I was lucky to discover the series with Falling Free!
Leo Graf is a long time employee of GalacTech, and is one of the finest safety engineers in the galaxy. His skill as an engineer and teacher resulted in the Habitat’s administrator attaching him to the project. At first, Leo plays along with the company’s expectation that the quaddies are tools to be trained and used. But as the novel progresses, Leo finds himself becoming attached to the quaddies, and his mission changes from being their teacher to becoming their revolutionary leader.
Leo’s foil is a former underling of his, Bruce Van Atta, administrator of the Habitat. Brucie-baby – as Leo calls him – was booted upstairs to administration by Leo in order to get him out of the way of the more competent workers. This is the first time I’ve seen The Dilbert Principle used in fiction. An administrator through and through, Bruce toes the company line when it comes to the quaddies: They are assets who he needs to prove profitable, or he’ll look bad and probably won’t get the bonus he deserves. If an order comes through to terminate the quaddie project, well, what can Bruce do other than begrudgingly comply?
The quaddies were created for working in free-fall (zero gravity) conditions by Dr. Cay, deceased. They’re fast learners and hard workers. However, if they aren’t financially worth maintaining, their future is in doubt. Of the quaddies, the main players are Silver, one of the oldest in the project, Claire, one of the first natural mothers of the group, and Tony, Claire’s partner and top class engineer.
My first impression of the novel was negative. In the first fifth, great pains are taken to highlight the fact that the quaddies are look like children. Indeed, most of them are children. The oldest are in their early twenties, but still maintain very child-like characteristics. This makes subsequent references to GalacTech’s arranged ‘reproductive assignments’ very uncomfortable, and a sex scene later on downright horrifying. The novel continues its fascination with sex-related comments and scenarios throughout (references to missing condoms, ‘unapproved’ trysts, attempted sexual bribery), but as the action picks up you might forgive this. Less forgivable is that our hero – in his late 30s at best – is interested in pursuing a relationship with one of the quaddies. Or maybe I’m overly sensitive. I used to enjoy May to December, actually.
Once you get past the squick factor, the remainder of the novel is all right. If it wasn’t for the uncomfortable moments and out-of-place extreme profanity (thanks Bruce?), this would make a good book for teenage readers. It’s a attention span holder: The humour flows thick and events move fast. Maybe too fast: The book is short, meaning scenarios that would be better played out over a longer period feel rushed (e.g. Leo’s change of heart, and much later on, the attack on the Habitat). At the same time, some scenes feel like they take up too much space (e.g. the construction of the vortex mirror). It’s nothing that seriously disrupts the flow, as even though some plots play out too slowly, they’re still quite short and unobtrusive overall.
It’s hard to fault the writing itself. It’s to the point, leaving a lot of the environmental details to the imagination. Rather than spend pages agonising over describing each corner of every module of the Habitat, the novel places its power in its characters and dialogue. Fortunately, they’re well written. There’s no philosophising between characters. There’s a clear point to each conversation. Characters have opinions that evolve, surprising characteristics, unexpected rages, hidden agendas. Bruce goes from being a jerk to being a huge jerk, Silver goes from being another slave to someone who takes charge and makes her own decisions. In short, the characters are dynamic over the course of the novel.
When the novel isn’t engaging in dialogue, it’s likely talking about something engineering or technology related. Bujold has a family of engineers at her disposal, so this makes sense. It definitely pays off when you decide to make the hero of the novel an engineer. Myself not being from a mechanical engineering background, the feats Leo accomplishes in his quest to free the quaddies might as well have all been science fiction to me. Regardless, even for a layperson, the descriptions of the more physical activities were easy to follow, and rarely did I have to go back and re-read a description to figure out what Leo and the gang were trying to accomplish.
The ending is abrupt. Like, a major event happens, there’s a hint of possible conflict, and then the novel ends. It makes the scope of the novel very clear, but then I feel the scope wasn’t grand enough. And then I have no idea if the next novel in the chronological cycle continues this story or not. This is slightly off-putting, but nothing reading the blurb of the next novel won’t solve.
Overall, I enjoyed Falling Free. I had major reservations after all the squicky stuff, but the plot was fun and the characters engaging. There was tension, but I didn’t feel a particular sense of urgency at any point. For a novel about defying a huge galaxy-spanning organisation, it was fairly light, which is kind of refreshing. I’d recommend it to existing sci-fi fans, who are less likely to be squicked out by the abuse of a child-like race.
That’s a terrible line to end a review on. I’ve got nothing better. Good night everybody!
– Matthew
