#BookReview: The Icarus Changeling
Having tackled Mission: Impossible, Zahn is gunning for SF Agatha Christie.
When it comes to Timothy Zahn’s Icarus series, I oft find myself saying similar things.
Such as:
Zhan should be a grandmaster of science fiction, but he obviously sells too many books.
The main character, Gregory Rourke, never gets lost in the wilderness of mirrors so much as he lives there.
When we meet Rourke’s father, he may as well be James Garner, because he has as many aphorisms as Maverick’s Pappy.
Like Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, the plot goes so fast, you hardly realize that there are clues being handed to you, or see the mystery that’s being solved right in front of you.
Like Leverage or Mission: Impossible, Rourke doesn’t so much have a Plan C as much as he has a plan M.
Now that we’re on book four, little has changes.
For The Icarus Changeling, we have something a little new for Zahn. He’s decided he wants to have Agatha Christie in space. And he succeeds.
The Story
Gregory Rourke and his partner, the Kadolian named Seline, have been sent to seek out and find an Icarus gate on the planet Alainn, in Bilswift. And as Rourke himself describes it:
Unfortunately, even the most advanced planet had patches of nowhere. On Alainn, that nowhere included the town of Bilswift.
They’re not in town for an entire chapter when they run into ten-year-old Tirano, another Kadolian. Tirano is an “indentured servant,” brokered by the local slaver. Seline doesn’t want to just walk away from the situation, and Rourke is going to back her play.
But when the slaver drops dead, and one of the “indentured servants” goes missing, Rourke and Seline find themselves on the suspect list for the local police. Along the way, we end up with a wide range of suspects, and a wider collection of targets. And of course, Rourke and Seline have to solve the mysteries in Bilswift, before they’re either arrested as the killers, or become the next victims.
Damn, these are fun. They truly are. Zahn writes them like literally no one else I can think of. Find me another series where almost everyone is smart: the heroes, the antagonists, the villains, the secondary characters. I mean everybody. Now, sure, it’s theoretically easy for an author to make characters look smart, since the author already knows the answers. But when was the last time an author gifted everybody with a level of intelligence that makes it a level playing field?
Seriously, I haven’t found someone who could craft a mystery like this since Rex Stout—who allowed his multiple main characters to have intelligence as well as vivid personalities. And despite playing perfectly fair, I don’t think many are going to figure out how this mystery is going to end. There are enough twists and turns, a lot of well-drawn details, and so fast-paced, you might read this twice just to see how Zahn play you.
On top of everything else, Zahn moved the over-arching plot about the Icarus gates and their creators in ways I wouldn’t have expected.
The Characters
As usual, Gregory Rourke feels like a spy who has been raised by Bret Maverick. Like the Mel Gibson film, Maverick, I do halfway expect the last book to have Rourke’s father show up as a last-minute twist of the corkscrew.
This book, however, let’s his partner Seline have more of the spotlight. If you read Zahn’s Quadrail series, you see that he can write male-female partners without romantic entanglements. In this book, we see why. But we also have Seline drive much of the plot. Once she sees one of her fellow Kadolians enslaved, she will simply not stand for it. This entire plot allows us to see more of how Rourke and Seline’s relationship works.
Normally, we have a visit from Zahn’s antagonist, Directo Naask, the primary competition for the Icarus gates. This time, we end up with a visit from one of his minions, Huginn. It’s interesting the see the opposition going along with our heroes, or even seeing eye-to-eye with them. And Naask and the Paath are truly looking more and more like competition than antagonists as the series goes along.
The World
As usual, the world here is just fleshed out enough to make the plot work, building upon the layers of world-building we’ve seen in previous novels. Zahn has it all built into the mystery in this case.
Politics
None. Zero. Nothing.
Content Warning
This is on par with your average classical murder mystery. So, rated PG, at worst?
Who is it for?
This is one part Agatha Christie, original Mission: Impossible with some extra layers of The Sting and Leverage, and then add a few more twists on a science fiction level.
Why buy it?
This is Timothy Zahn at his best. It really is. Unlike certain authors who get lazier and more long-winded with success, coasting on their prior reputation, Zahn just keeps getting better as an author.