Running from the Deity (Adventures of Pip and Flinx) [Kindle Edition]

Alan Dean Foster (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the better than average 11th installment of Foster's popular Pip and Flinx series (after 2004's Sliding Scales), the empathetically gifted Flinx and his mini-dragon companion, Pip, go in search of a weapon to use against a powerful enemy. When Flinx's sentient spaceship, Teacher, needs to repair itself, they land on the lovely world of Arrawd, which has the necessary raw materials. There Flinx meets the fisherman Ebbanai and his shrewd wife, Storra, who soon discover that Flinx not only shares their empathic powers but can also miraculously heal the sick residents of Arrawd. Soon enough, Ebbanai and Storra, as well as the local rulers, are exploiting Flinx's gifts for their own monetary gain. By now, the detour on Arrawd has already forced Flinx to defy his mission and his principles. Flinx will have to fight back with Teacher's weaponry and survive a suicide bombing by religious fanatics before the sadder but wiser people of Arrawd will let him go. Meticulous, if sometimes tedious, descriptions render the strange landscapes and characters of Foster's world with believable clarity. A classic alien-contact novel, this recalls the work of the late Hal Clement.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In his latest adventure, Flinx has landed on a world in the Blight so that his ship can make necessary repairs. Unfortunately, the native Dwarra, whom he is supposed to leave be, spot him, and for the first time he can associate with other sentients without having horrible migraines from the pressure of other minds. When they discover he has nearly magical technology, though, his newfound friends insist he stay and heal the afflicted in their village. Word spreads, and he is swamped by the would-be-healed. The Dwarra begin to view him as a deity, which governments and the religious establishment notice, not entirely with pleasure. The local balance of power is affected, because if one government can get him to work for them, they would have an edge over the others. Trying to leave, Flinx discovers just how much the competing governments want to keep him--under one or another's thumb. As usual, Flinx is well-meaning but prone to not thinking things through. Another entertaining addition to the world of Pip and Flinx. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 252 KB
• Print Length: 272 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0345461614
• Publisher: Del Rey (October 25, 2005)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000FCKGKM
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,872 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Alan Dean Foster's work to date includes excursions into hard science-fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He has also written numerous non-fiction articles on film, science, and scuba diving, as well as having produced the novel versions of many films, including such well-known productions as "Star Wars", the first three "Alien" films, "Alien Nation", and "The Chronicles of Riddick". Other works include scripts for talking records, radio, computer games, and the story for the first "Star Trek" movie. His novel "Shadowkeep" was the first ever book adapation of an original computer game. In addition to publication in English his work has been translated into more than fifty languages and has won awards in Spain and Russia. His novel "Cyber Way" won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990, the first work of science-fiction ever to do so.

Foster's sometimes humorous, occasionally poignant, but always entertaining short fiction has appeared in all the major SF magazines as well as in original anthologies and several "Best of the Year" compendiums. His published oeuvre includes more than 100 books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Gods Must Be Crazy in outer space, October 25, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Running from the Deity: A Pip & Flinx Adventure (Adventures of Pip and Flinx) (Hardcover)

Philip "Flinx" Lynx is the result of illegal eugenic experiments that simply proved science needs boundaries as he contains enhanced skills to propel and collect emotions from others. Currently Flinx searches for a missing super-weapon left behind by an extinct race that may prove the only tool to stop a species that threatens mankind from behind the Great Emptiness. However, though the weapon is planet sized Flinx has failed to find it and is forced to land on an uncharted orb when his intelligent spaceship, Teacher, needs emergency repairs.

Flinx meets a backwater race of aliens who like him can emit and receive emotions. He breaks the prime directive of the Commonwealth not to interfere with primitive species especially using technology as Flinx heals the sick and injured. That backfires when the natives begin worshipping Flinx the God which infuriates religious and political leaders. His reputation as the deity crosses national boundaries; other countries prepare to invade to bring God home. While Teacher makes self-repairs, Flinx realizes why the prime directive exists while RUNNING FROM THE DEITY, which happens to be him.

RUNNING FROM THE DEITY, the latest FLINX'S FOLLY is a terrific tale that satirizes classic Star Trek by displaying what happens when a much more advances civilization brings impossible to grasp technology to more primitive societies. Flinx is in rare form trying to do good until he realizes what he has wrought while local leaders do what they always do; manipulate others including the "Deity". Though some readers will be upset that the original mission turns inert, this is an interesting tale as fans will think of The Gods Must Be Crazy in outer space.

Harriet Klausner

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Another lackluster entry to a once gripping series., February 23, 2006

By 

J. Muehe "Old time SF rules" (Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Running from the Deity: A Pip & Flinx Adventure (Adventures of Pip and Flinx) (Hardcover)

Another lackluster entry to a once gripping series - that pretty much says it all. This book and the last book I read in this series has pretty much ruined the series for me. Foster used to be one of my must read authors - meaning, if I saw a book by him I bought it no questions asked. I hate it when a good author goes bad.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Off track for the series, November 30, 2005

By 

John E. Pombrio "John Pombrio" (Manchester, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Running from the Deity: A Pip & Flinx Adventure (Adventures of Pip and Flinx) (Hardcover)

Pip and Flinx books by Alan Dean Foster are always entertaining. This book follows a couple of others from the series where the main story is really just a "stopover on another world" with a little of the series continuation tacked onto the end. The story is entertaining but does not have really anything to do with the commonwealth. It is a "well meaning man from an advanced civilization lands on a primative world and how he affects the aliens" story. Flinx brings off of the world nothing to help with the galactic threat or answers to his search. Mr Foster may want to concentrate on the series and skip the errant layovers. Good only.