Up Jim River [Hardcover]

Michael Flynn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 2010

Hugo Award finalist and Robert A. Heinlein Award-winning SF writer Michael Flynn returns to space opera with Up Jim River. There is a river on Dangchao Waypoint, a small world out beyond Die Bold. It is a longish river as such things go, with a multitude of bayous and rapids and waterfalls, and it runs through many a strange and hostile country. Going up it, you can lose everything.

Going up it, you can find anything. The Hound Bridget ban has vanished and her employer, the Kennel (the mysterious superspy agency of the League) has given up the search. But her daughter, the harper Mearana, has not. She enlists the scarred man, Donovan, to aid her in her search. With the reluctant assent and financial aid of the Kennel, they set forth. Bridget ban was following hints of an artifact that would “protect the League from the Confederacy for aye.” Mearana is eager to follow that trail, but Donovan is reluctant, because whatever is at the end of it made a Hound disappear. What it would do to a harper and a drunk is far too easy to imagine.

Donovan’s mind had been shattered by Those of Name, the rulers of the Confederacy, and no fewer than seven quarreling personalities now inhabit his skull. How can he hope to see her through safely? Together, they follow Bridget ban’s trail to the raw worlds of the frontier, edging ever closer to the uncivilized and barbarian planets of the Wild.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

On the harper Mearana’s home planet, up Jim River is a saying indicating a journey ever further into danger and the unknown. Mearana’s mother, Bridget ban, has disappeared on mysterious business. Even the Kennel, her employer and one of the galaxy’s two sources of secret agents, didn’t know what she was looking for or where she went. Mearana is determined, though, to discover her mother’s fate. She manages to convince the scarred man, the Fudir, who was once Donovan but became six or seven personalities after a botched experiment by Those of Name, to join her out of a sense of nostalgia. The worlds inhabited by these people are sufficient reason to read the novel. The extrapolations of linguistic drift and remnants of ancient history that Flynn conjures constitute a fascinating story in themselves. Adding to them a tense and thrilling search from the bar on Jehovah to the very Wild itself, through strange cultures and dangerous ports, just makes the book all the more engaging. A future history with serious punch. --Regina Schroeder

Review

Praise for Michael Flynn:

“With well-drawn characters and a colorful universe, this narrative tour de force brings space opera to the next level.”
--Library Journal on Up Jim River

“The return to the far future Flynn universe is an engaging science fiction thriller that focuses on a search and rescue mission in an isolated lethal area of the human dominated galaxy. . . .  Up Jim River is an enjoyable mostly planet side adventure thriller on an orb on the edge of the Wilds of deep space.”
--SFRevu

“Flynn implants the style of medieval storytelling into an old-fashioned space opera.”
--The Washington Post Book World

“Composed with structural brilliance, invested with authentic human feeling, and redolent not only of its SF precursors but of archetypal myths that echo timelessly through life and art, The January Dancer is a masterpiece.”
--Locus

“Weaves love, mystery, music, action . . .  to create a mammoth of a read that will leave readers enraptured in its pages for generations to come.”
--Sacramento Book Review on The January Dancer

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (April 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765322846
• ISBN-13: 978-0765322845
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #996,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding sequel . . ., May 17, 2010

By 

David Zampino "21st Century Hobbit" (Delavan, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Up Jim River (Hardcover)

. . . to "The January Dancer" -- and a terrific story in its own right. As I've indicated in other reviews of Michael Flynn's novels, he writes Story -- in the best possible sense of the word. His writing is intense and tightly written, and honestly, not for the faint of heart. If you're going to invest time in a Michael Flynn novel, you need to be prepared to "get into" his world.

"Up Jim River" picks up where "The January Dancer" leaves off, with the Harpist and the Scarred Man once again playing prominent roles -- only now, the story is in "real-time" and not told in the flashback of the previous book. The novel answers several questions deliberately left unanswered in "The January Dancer" only to ask several more (one of which being this: Will there be more volumes to follow?) One can only hope that the answer to that question is "YES"!

No spoilers -- but one teaser! Readers of "The January Dancer" have wondered if the novel was set in the same "Universe" as Flynn's four-volume "Firestar" series -- only thousands of years in the future. The answer is "yes" -- and the avid Flynn reader will appreciate discovering this fact.

A truly tremendously enjoyable read. I highly recommend this book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars entertaining search and rescue mission science fiction thriller, April 17, 2010

By 

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

This review is from: Up Jim River (Hardcover)

The Kennel of the United League of the Periphery assigns top Hound Bridget ban to obtain an artifact on the frontier planet Dangchao Waypoint that allegedly will help them remain safe in their galactic war against their enemy the Confederate of Central Worlds. Bridget ban knows the Confederacy will go all out to possess or destroy the artifact. Arriving on the planet, she begins the dangerous trek up river only to vanish. The Kennel conducts a quick inquest before deciding all beginnings and endings are with Jehovah; as Bridget ban obviously is.

Outraged with the instant official write off of her mother, who was a loyal hound, Bridget's daughter Mearana rejects the notion that her mom is dead. Mearana decides to rescue her mom, but knows she needs professional help so she chooses her mom's former lover, Donovan, who is insane so Mearana believes he might agree to do the job with her at his side; though he also could get them killed as the Confederacy Those of Name tortured him into seven distinct personalities. He agrees to take her to Dangchao Waypoint along the river of death.

Returning to the far future universe of The January Dancer, Michael Flynn provides an entertaining search and rescue mission science fiction thriller as the location of a remote lethal sector of the human dominated galaxy comes across as powerfully vivid. Enhancing time and place is almost mythological use of references and "archaic" vernacular dating back to twentieth and twenty-first century earth that focuses on a presupposition of knowledge and understanding of previous civilizations. More traditional in outlook than its predecessor, Up Jim River comes across more like a series of TV episodes along the line of Lost or 24, but with an unhinged hero. Readers will enjoy this fast-paced S&R quest on a planet filled with wilds.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good story set in an intriguing universe, July 23, 2011

By 

Dick Stanley (Austin, TX, United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Up Jim River (Kindle Edition)

Such a good story. Even better than the starter, The January Dancer, it's the sequel to. I got a little tired of the byplay of Donovan's multiple personalities, but there turned out to be a meaningful point to them, after all. Flynn's universe is always intriguing. The idea that millions of descendants of colonists from Earth would have mixed up their races, ethnic groups and even their languages to the point of near unintelligibly (until you stumble over phonetic insights such as the Murkans and the Yurpans) after a thousand years is intriguingly plausible. Although why they all choose, amusingly, to pretend to be Irish (except for the fact that the author is) is unclear. The ending is worth the price of admission all by itself.