Opinions of a Wolf

Summary:
People think Harry Creed is squandering his talents, but he actually quite enjoys his job working for the UNE breaking bad news to various sentient alien races residing on Earth.  Still, he doesn’t mind doing a favor for his old friend, Ben Javna, who calls up saying the lizard race, the Nidu, need a specific breed of sheep for the coronation ceremony, and it’s vital in keeping the peace between the two planets that Earth help provide one.  Creed doesn’t think this will be much of a challenge, but he soon finds up he’s signed up for more than he bargained for, running into everything from The Church of the Evolved Lamb, to a Nagch who digests his victims alive, to other computer geniuses, to scandal within the UNE.

Review:
This is one of those scifi political intrigue books crossed with Douglas Adams style humor.  I don’t usually do political intrigue in scifi, since I avoid politics like the plague in real life, but the Douglas Adam style humor manages to make it all actually interesting and intriguing.

It’s impossible not to enjoy all of the very strongly developed characters, whether they’re a villain or not.  Frankly, that’s a good thing, as it’s rather hard to tell half the time who’s the villain and who isn’t (with the exception of Creek of course).  The alien sentient species imagined are rather traditional in appearance, but not so much in behavior, which keeps them interesting.  For instance, the Nidu are able to communicate through smell in addition to speech, and this tends to lead to problems on Earth.  Even very minor characters who are only in the story for a few pages are so crisply described, that it is impossible not to imagine them as clearly as if it was a film.  In fact, the whole book reads rather like a scifi action film in the style of The Fifth Element.

The action sequences are universally stunning.  There is one shoot-out scene in a mall, in particular, that also incorporates equipment from a futuristic game, reminiscent of Ender’s Game that left me grinning with joy at the sheer awesomeness of it.  The social commentary in the form of The Church of the Evolved Lamb is also fun.  This is a religion that knows that its founder was a fraud, but has decided to attempt to make his prophecies come true anyway.  It makes for some really wild moments.

That said, sometimes the political intrigue itself was a bit hard to follow.  I’m still rather confused as to what exactly was going on, politically, in the middle of the book.  I think I’d have to re-read it to figure that out, exactly.  I think the fact that I didn’t get confused at all in The Dark Tower series, but did here says something.  Still though, the humor and action sequences kept the plot moving enough that the political intrigue didn’t really matter that much anyway.

Overall, if you enjoy humorous scifi in the style of Douglas Adams, you will definitely enjoy this book.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Harvard Coop

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