A thoroughly entertaining book, full of action, and light humor. The character's are well developed and I got into the story very quickly. ( )

I had read the first four books in this series years (decades!) ago and had a memory of liking them. Recently, stuck without a book, I picked up a copy of Trouble Magnet to read. I was astonished how little I liked it. The prose was extremely awkward and the plot fairly predictable and cliché-ridden.

Had the author's writing changed that much? Or, had I just misremembered?

I went back and re-read this one and the first part of The Tar-Aiym Krang and the answer was the second choice. I guess the concept of a telepathic, poisonous, flying pet dragon was just so cool many decades ago that I overlooked the poor writing. What might have gotten 3 or even 3½ stars if rated purely from memory only gets 2 now. ( )

The prelude to the thranx books,treveals how Flinx came about. ( )

For Love of Mother-Not by Alan Dean Foster is the story of a young boy with mysterious background and talent. Flinx is "adopted" for a fee from what is essentially a government run slave auction. His Mother-Not, Mother Mastiff, isn't quite sure why she chose him - she wasn't even looking for a slave or companion. Flinx can sometimes read the emotions of people around him. Can he also influence them?

Two sets of people are looking for Flinx: the group that genetically engineered him as part of an experiment on furthering humanity and the Moral Enforcers who want to stop the experiments. Interesting conflict comes when it appears that the experimenters, who have kidnapped Mother Mastiff in order to use her to influence Flinx, are shown to have cared deeply for Flinx and had provided him with a loving childhood until their organization was disrupted by the law enforcers. At one point Flinx sees the law enforcers coming as rescuers only to be battered by the hate and revulsion that they feel for him. And, to make it even more confusing, the renegade group no longer seems to see Flinx as a person but as validation that their techniques can work for good; Flinx's life is soon secondary to proving their point.

I'd like to read the other Flinx books to see where Alan Dean Foster goes with the story. FLinx and Mother Mastiff are engaging characters.

A prequel to THE TAR-AIYM KRANG. Notable for the "Flinx meets Pip" scenes and for the "Flinx flips out" scene at the end where he zaps a bunch of bad guys. ( )