Lightwing

In the future, humanity- and its various mutant offshoots, collectively H'Mu for "human mutants"- is only one among many space-faring sentient species.

Kiondili Wae is a young H'Mu with a strong talent for manipulating electromagnetic fields with her mind. This gets her recruited as a research assistant for a human scientist on Corson Station, a research outpost where humans are working alongside representatives from other species to develop faster-than-light technology and become fully recognized among the most prominent star-faring species.

I'm always up for a good science fiction book exploring ESP themes, and this one has it in spades, along with a colorful variety of aliens, including one of Kiondili's peers, a more extreme variation show more of human mutant without a stable physical body but whose ESP is off the charts, a respected scientist from a predator species who has a hard time working alongside a coworker whose reactions keep triggering her attack instincts, and a furred alien practical joker in a long-running competition with Kiondili's mentor and others on the station.

I was surprised re-reading this book recently how much I liked it. I remembered it as only average, but this time around there were two things that set this book apart from many other scientific research narratives in the genre for me.

First and simpler is the completely unremarked gender equality: roughly half of the scientists and their assistants we meet, human and alien, are women, and this is not important at all to the plot- there are no cartoon sexists deriding their work who have to be shown and overcome, and nary a scene of "in the past, women were excluded from science- look how much better and more enlightened we are in the future," just scientists doing science, some of whom are women. It's unbelievably refreshing.

Second is the way that the scientific research in this book is handled. Science is presented clearly as a collaborative effort- Kiondili a genius prodigy who quickly moves up the ranks, and there is no solitary genius with a history of social awkwardness (especially with women!) whose theories are overlooked or derided by his jealous peers until he shows them up, saves the day, and gets the respect (and love interest!) he deserves. There are only very smart people working together, some of whom have a history or differences in belief or methodology that make that difficult, and a difficult project whose lack of practical results so far have put its future funding in jeopardy- the persecuted genius complex is presented as the dangerous and selfish thing it is, and actions taken by someone with one nearly destroy the project, in fact.

Though this book has less action than Harper's planet-based series (see Wolfwalker and series), her body-centered writing still shines through in the descriptions of ESP and solar-surfing (as shown on the cover- note also the inaccurate depiction of Kiondili, whose skin is actually gray). Kiondili isn't perfect- she has a temper that tends to push people away and a tendency toward rashness that ends up deeply hurting another character- but she learns from her mistakes, and is willing to apologize and try to make amends.

Recommended for anyone interested in psychic powers, scientific research stories, and coming of age stories. Harper's website- seemingly abandoned as of 2013 when I write this review- mentions a possible sequel, which would be very welcome, but this novel does end satisfactorily so you're not left hanging without it. show less

I was really trying to make a go of this book, but something kept bothering me and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Until a couple of days ago, when I came to the necessary realization and put the book aside, unfinished. As I read about 90 pages or so, I got quite a way through it before giving up but by the time I did, I was so sick of the book, or more accurately, the characters, that I just wanted to throw the book through my front window.

In this book, Kiondili Wae, an entity with high Esper ability (to read and manipulate minds and things with her mind, i.e., telepathy), lands a seemingly good research job at Corson Station, where she will hopefully be researching FTL technology and theory and where her boss is perhaps the show more most famous and respected researcher there, Dr. Stillman.

However, things start to go bad from nearly the beginning, with people getting in her face and starting crap with her on day one to meeting her flighty boss, who immediately sends her on a bizarre errand to find an alien researcher elsewhere on station (a Dhirrnu) and give him some information, info that will enrage the alien and make him Kiondili’s permanent enemy. Gee, nice damn boss. Thanks for doing that to me, boss, especially during my first 30 minutes of working for you. Asshole!

I quit reading this book because I have never read a book with so much latent and blatant hostility between characters in it before in my life! I don’t know what the author was trying to accomplish, but whatever it was, they went overboard. Big time. Everyone pretty much hates everyone else. People, including Kiondili, idiot that she is, plays vicious practical jokes on everyone else and some of these people are aliens with killer instincts. Kiondili can basically read minds, for all intents and purposes, she gets bombarded with hostility at all times, flooding out at her from all sides, but especially from certain characters who hate her from the moment she arrives, all for no good reason. It’s like they’re emotionally arrested high school students who never matured. And these are the leading researchers in the galaxy, treating her like jealous, juvenile asswipes. It’s bizarre! It makes no sense.

Kiondili gets put on a backup crew for a new test ship, so she’s excited, but there’s so much bickering amongst the crew and one of them hates her so much that he tries to sabotage her career by accusing her of stealing someone else’s research through her mental abilities – it’s just too much. If I want that much tension in a book, I want some pressure relieved by seeing some people or ships blown away! This nonstop building of tension page by page is murder. It’s also not overly realistic, in my opinion. Yes, some work situations are extremely difficult. I’ve had horrible jobs. Yes, co-workers can make your life hell. But this is fucking ridiculous!

So, basically I hated this book. I kept waiting for it to improve, for the hostility to dissipate. It just continued to get worse. Great. I could go on and on, but why bother? I got a third of the way through and quit. I had better books to read. This one was aggravating me too much and wasn’t worth it. I don’t want to come away from a book with higher blood pressure and feeling stressed out. One star and not recommended. show less

Good enough, but pretty straightforward - iow, just another spec. fic. adventure. Rec. for fans of telepathy I guess. The aliens were interesting, but not sufficiently plausible/ exotic/ carefully-drawn for me.