Book review: The Icarus Coda, by Timothy Zahn
I love it when a plan comes together.
The Icarus Coda is the sixth and final book in Timothy Zahn’s epic science fiction series.
And it may be one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Story
Gregory Rourke and his partner, the alien Seline, had been working for years with the Icarus group in an attempt to find the Icarus portals and undercut the Patth’s monopoly on transportation in the galaxy.
Now, Rourke and Seline are hunted by the vey people they used to work for.
And they’re being hunted by the Ammei, a former client race of the Icari … and who would like to take over the galaxy.
The Patth still aren’t their biggest fans, either.
After months of studying the Ammei and the clues from The Icarus Needle, now there are bounties out on both Seline and Rourke: two million, each.
When they go to Juniper, one end of an Ammei Gemini portal, they stumble across Bubloo, who seems to know far more about what’s going on than even they do. If only he would be lucid for more than a few minutes at a time, they might find out. His xenopsychiatrist, Doctor Christopher Robin, already has his hands full with Bubloo.
What follows is possibly one of the most complex six-sided shootouts I’ve read in years. There are the Patth, purge assassins (still pissed from The Icarus Changeling), the main Ammei, a rebel group of Ammei, whatever Bubloo is, whoever Robin might be, the former Icarus group, and even the locals who are just in the crossfire. I may be missing a few sides to this polyhedron.
This doesn’t even discuss the real wild card in this fracas: Sir Nicholas Rourke, Gregory’s father.
It all leads to the final secret of the Icari—what they were, where they went, and what happened between them, the Patth, and Ammei, and the Kadolians, Seline’s people.
In my review of The Icarus Needle, I said that Timothy Zahn thought that Mission Impossible and Leverage were playing on easy mode, and he felt the need to go full Kobayashi Maru. The Icarus Coda is more like the Gordian knot, only made up of hundreds of smaller ones, and no, you can’t cut them this time, because that would be simple.
Writers will often mention “Chekov’s gun”—where if a writer relies on something further on in the plot, they have to bring it up far earlier, they can’t just whip it out of thin air. In this case, Zahn’s guns are spread out through every other book in the series. Almost every major (surviving) character makes a comeback, one way or another (it is not a spoiler to say that our con man from The Icarus Twin, nor any the organized criminals, make an appearance).
The final solution to this puzzle has been sprinkled throughout every book since the first.
My father once described John Dickson Carr novels as mysteries where everything moves so fast, the reader doesn’t have a chance to notice that they’ve been handed clues. The Icarus Coda doesn’t slow down for anything. I’m not sure if the nearest analog in mystery thrillers is Mickey Spillane or Joseph Garber’s Vertical Run. Long-time readers of this series will know things are bad when Rourke actually has to use lethal force.
By the end, Rourke has a solution where he … sort of sells out everybody to everybody else. (Points for those of you who get that Lion in Winter reference.) And it is a perfect end to an amazing series.
The characters
At this point, Rourke feels like an old friend … the paranoid friend who may not be paranoid enough, and who not only grew up in the wilderness of mirrors, but owns real estate there. He’s not quite Sherlock Holmes-level of intelligent and observant (and nowhere near as confident) he’s going to be the nearest science fiction gets to that short of Grand Admiral Thrawn (also created by Zahn).
The nice thing is that almost everyone else in this book is nearly as smart as Rourke. Stupid characters have not survived this far.
The World
This world is so well developed … let’s just say that Zahn has about ten thousand years of history in this world, and it’s all part of the puzzle pieces.
Politics
Strictly local to the book. If you can find modern politics in this book, then I worry deeply for your mental health.
Content warning
The content here is probably PG-13, at most. I had more profanity in my comments than there were in the book.
Who is this for?
If you like Zahn or his publisher, Baen books, you probably already have this on your shelf.
Take the twists and turns of the best caper media you’ve ever consumed, add the brilliance of a Sherlock Holmes, the action of a Flash Gordon, and a grand finale that leaves me almost speechless.
Why buy it?
I got my hands on review copies, and I’m going to to and buy the whole series in hardcover.
It was a joy and a pleasure to watch Zahn bring this series together in a grand conclusion.
But this is one of the best science-fiction mysteries, and one of the best science fiction series I’ve ever read.