Jackal Bird

Rating:
Summary: A Great Adventure on an Astounding New World
Review: Michael Barley's debut novel "Jackal Bird" received some great reviews, no doubt encouraging him to complete his later novels.

In the New York Review of Science Fiction, Douglas Barbour said Jackal Bird "creates a world as marvelous and believable as Frank Herbert's Dune..., linking together stories of childhood, war, betrayal, intrigue, and love that are both richly complicated and utterly rooted in its invented world."

SF legend Spider Robinson said that Barley "combines a poet's eye and an architect's intuitive sense of structure to create a lavishly detailed, real-seeming, yet constantly surprising world, in which he has set an intricate and compelling story of love, betrayal and redemption."

In Barley's novel, the Jackal Bird is a native creature facing extinction on a planet slowly being terraformed by man -- one of the ethical conundra Barley presents during the narrative. To his credit, he handles these issues subtly rather than beating them over the reader's head.

Barley also paces the flow of information about the past and future of this distant world with equal skill. While the descriptions of the present are richly detailed, he provides only hints that guide the reader towards figuring out what has happened in the past and what the future will bring. The result is a layered vision with the illusion of great depth.

The novel contains a vision of technology more consistent than most. Barley has refrained from filling it with improbable devices and keeps the weapons, communication systems and interstellar transportation compatible with current scientific thinking. The technology is presented to add to the realism of the novel's invented world, rather than for its own sake.

If this book has a flaw, it is perhaps that the dialog is sometimes a bit strained during the latter half. But, taken in context, this is a minor stain on a large canvas. Overall, Jackal Bird is a gripping story of the potential, and limits, of human nature.

-gsf