The January Dancer

A triumph of the New Space Opera: fast, complicated, wonder-filled!

Hugo Award finalist and Robert A. Heinlein Award–winning SF writer Michael Flynn now turns to space opera with stunningly successful results. Full of rich echoes of space opera classics from Doc Smith to Cordwainer Smith, The January Dancer tells the fateful story of an ancient pre-human artifact of great power, and the people who found it.

Starting with Captain Amos January, who quickly loses it, and then the others who fought, schemed, and killed to get it, we travel around the complex, decadent, brawling, mongrelized interstellar human civilization the artifact might save or destroy. Collectors want the Dancer; pirates take it, rulers crave it, and they’ll all kill if necessary to get it. This is a thrilling yarn of love, revolution, music, and mystery, and it ends, as all great stories do, with shock and a beginning.

Starred Review. Acclaimed SF writer Flynn (Eifelheim)delivers an epic tale of adventure, intrigue, suspense and mystery. Forced to land for repairs on an unnamed, remote planet, Captain Amos January and crew discover a cache of artifacts left by a cryptic alien race long before humans went to space. They soon retrieve the Dancer, a shape-changing stone that defies analysis. Possibly the scepter of a legendary prehuman king, certainly unique, the priceless trophy is desired by diverse governments, military powers, plutocrats and cabals throughout human-settled space. Flynn knits a richly detailed story of hunters, bandits and patriots that will keep even the most diligent readers on their toes. The plot evokes old-school space opera with its whirlwind pace, immense scope and twist ending, but cutting-edge extrapolation breathes vivid life into this universe of scoundrels, heroes and romantics. This multi-layered story demands much of the reader, but offers more than equivalent rewards. (Oct.)
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A harper wanders into a bar on Jehovah, the focal point of an interchange on the spaceways, and asks for the story of the Dancer, a prehuman artifact discovered by the crew of a ship commanded by one Captain January, which set down for repairs on an empty planet. They lost it trading for a working ship, and it changes hands many times over the course of its story. It shows up again on civil war-wracked New Eireann, then makes its way to a pirate fleet. If the legends are true, it’s an artifact of great and terrible power, and among its seekers are the Fudir, a Terran; Little Hugh O’Carroll of the Eireannaughta; and the Hounds Bridget Ban and Greystroke. Through its story Flynn weaves the stories of the minstrel who asked about it and the man informing her, which are connected to a web of tales enveloping the Dancer. Flynn puts his world-building skills to good use, creating a context that begs to be further explored, whether by him or someone else. --Regina Schroeder