-- Publisher's Weekly, on Captive Dreams
Space opera fans will be swept away by the poetic rhythm and subtle plot construction, and the open-ended conclusion will leave them clamoring for future Donovan buigh adventures.
-- Publisher's Weekly, on In the Lion's Mouth
Over and over again he expresses in beautiful prose the double meaning that the events the character is experiencing have. In a single sentence he can show how the action of an event can mean one thing when observed from the outside and the very opposite when observed from inside the character. Marvelous!
-- Steven R. Zeigman, on Up Jim River, on AMAZON
“Composed with structural brilliance, invested with authentic human feeling, and redolent not only of its SF precursors but of archetypal myths that echo timelessly through life and art, The January Dancer is a masterpiece.”
--Locus
The Spiral Arm Series:
The Firestar Series
Independent Novels
Story Collections
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i just read finish to read on the razor edge i trully enjoyed congratulation from Mexico City
ReplyDeleteYou are the first to check in!
ReplyDeleteUnder a First Things post entitled "Pulpit Fiction" I put in a (much-deserved) plug for your splendid "Eifelheim": http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/07/18/pulpit-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-108852
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteYears ago I found "The Wreck of the River of Stars" at the public library in on of Northern Ontario's frozen and isolated cities. It was an amazing read that stayed with me for years and I subsequently read all, and purchased several, of our novels. Good job and well done all around. I tell people who will listen that it's rare to read from a writer who successfully creates a unique voice and style in novels, more often it's the same voice or style with a different setting - let's just call you the Faulkner of S.F., shall we !? Really glad I was able to finally purchase a brand new copy of "The Wreck of the River of Stars" this year.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. The Wreck was critically praised, but commercially not too successful. :(
DeleteAsk people if they've ever been involved in an organization as it crumbles and fails and wondered why....if you want to learn how an organization stumbles into disaster, read The Wreck. It's easily the most relevant management book I've read over the years and thankfully it never treated me like I might not "get it".
DeleteBy the way, good on you for this section of your blog site and thanks for replying to my typo-ridden comment. It's generous of you to spend the time on this kind of thing.
Best of luck on this new printing....I'm sure there will be many people, like me who wished they could find a copy. I've certainly been telling people about it.
After discovering your blog via Mark Shea's site, I picked up Eifelheim at a bookstore, and just finished it last night. I wanted to tell you that it was one of the most enjoyable novels I've read in many years! It can't have been easy to turn heavy doses of theoretical physics, scholastic philosophy, and medieval history into a thrilling story :) I intend to read many more of your books...Thanks very much for your writing, and warm wishes from a fellow Irish-American Catholic math nerd!
ReplyDeleteDanke sehr! Glad you liked it. Math nerds rule!
DeleteTOF, I am in the awkward position of wanting to purchase Up Jim River, but Amazon doesn't have the book new (at least, so far as it appears) and the vendor it suggests doesn't ship to where I am (Australia). Do you have any other sources that would ship to Australia? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried getting in touch with Tor Books directly? What about Barnes and Noble? Do they have Australian outlets?
DeleteTOF, is there any chance your books will become available for the Kindle? Since my two-year-old son started mountaineering up my bookcases, my better half has forced me to use 21st C technology for my reading.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure most of them are.
DeleteI must be looking in the wrong place then: your Amazon page only shows four titles under "Kindle edition" -- http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Flynn/e/B000APBAJA/ref=la_B000APBAJA_rf_p_n_feature_browse-b_2?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_82%3AB000APBAJA%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011&bbn=283155&ie=UTF8&qid=1390106858&rnid=618072011
DeleteLast of your I read was "The Wreck of the River of Stars". A gem, but bittersweet, and thus unusually insightful.
ReplyDeleteWhat about "Nanotech Chronicles"? I thought it was yours?
ReplyDeleteI don't think you can find it anywhere any more. Perhaps I should put up the cover for completeness?
DeleteThere are a handful of books I've read at least three times...Ender's Game, Dune, the Bible, Lord of the Rings, Wüthering Heights...and the Spiral Arm Series (with the exception of the last book...only twice for that). Starting the series again and it's still better each time. These books are sorely under appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI'm flattered. I should get on the stick on the new stuff.
DeleteHave you written up some details of the "Electric Highway" idea that is features int he Spiral Arm series? It may be a more realistic explanation of the "dark matter" effect. I love your books!!!!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely love the Spiral Arm series. Was wondering if On The Razor's Edge was coming out in paperback anytime soon?
ReplyDeleteHelp! I want to rave about On the Razor's Edge, and I tried sending an email to an email address I found, but it failed. I'd post my message here, but it contains spoilers, and I want to keep the story under wraps for those who care about such things. How can I reach you?
ReplyDeleteAfter reading and enjoying this blog I decided to read your books. I bought the only two available (in paper form) from Amazon Spain: The wreck of the River of Stars and Eifelheim. By mistake I bought the French translation of Eifelheim (I gave it to a friend of mine who likes SF and reads French), and read the Wreck of the River of Stars. Loved it. It has a calm pace but that does not slack, characters that are lovable and hateable at the same time, dramatic situations that evolve naturally (and false drama introduced artificially at the end of each chapter). I haven't given it a second reading yet but I am quiete sure it is second-reading honest, i.e. it makes sense if you read already knowing how it evolves and ends. It is sad and beautiful. de Cant, 'Kiru, Corrigan, Gorgas... I don't think I will forget them.
ReplyDeleteI've already bought Eifelheim (form Amazon UK) but haven't been able to find the rest if not in Kindle or second-hand. I will keep looking.
Thanks for such a lovely reading
So...who is Matilda of the Night? And is she known by another Name?
ReplyDeleteThere are clues scattered about the book that she is the Name that went rogue some years before. She will perhaps show up in a so-far unwritten story: "The Seven Widows."
DeleteYeah, that was the implied hint... 😉 When is the next book coming?
DeleteAlso, reading "without knowing," it would be easy to guess (before the end) that Donovan might be the Name that went rogue. That ambiguity actually works...
Hello Sir - read the Firestar series years ago and they really made a mark on me - thanks!
ReplyDeleteI've been working for the past few years to migrate to reading on the kindle. It's an adjustment for sure. Slowly, I've been buying the books I have in paper so they will be available on the Kindle. Well... I'm looking and see that only Falling Stars is on the kindle format for purchase, but not the others. Could you shed some light on how that works, and if you expect your entire battery of work to be available on e-read format?
It is a grave mystery to me. It would seem to me that to have only one book in a four-book series available in a particular format is self-destructive on the publisher's part. The best I can offer is that you write to the publisher, in this case Tor Books, and ask whether an electronic version is available or how soon that will be the case.
DeleteSo a long time ago I read this wonderful story in Analog magazine about a banker contracting with aliens to get rid of the useless people in society. All I could remember was roughly when (late 80s, early 90s), the phrase which I knew I'd misspelled "advudy shu chosen", the alien Johnny Stardust, and the thought there was an illustration of a humanoid alien in a bad suit associated with it. Not much to go on, but I went to reddit and asked, someone suggested a page that had all the Analog covers listed, and last year I found it! The Forest of Time and Other Stories. Now I find this page and realize that you also wrote Eifelheim. Originally a short, no? With a manuscript with awful illuminated lettering that was actually a circuit diagram?
ReplyDeleteLooks like it's time to start on some of your long-form work, but I just wanted to stop by and let you know how much I appreciated "The Common Goal of Nature." Not many Analog shorts stuck with me for nearly twenty years, but that one sure did.
Thank you for your kind words. And, yes, Eifelheim did originally appear as a novella in Analog. Inexplicably, it made the Hugo ballot that year. So did the novel many years later.
DeleteDear Sir, why have you omitted In The Country of the Blind from mention on this page? I read it in 1990, re-read it more than once (including 2020), and when the Firestar series began I was pre-sold. And then, there's everything else...
ReplyDeleteIt seems to have disappeared on its own. Thanks for the heads up.
DeleteSpeaking about In The Country of the Blind, is it correct to consider it a loose prequel to Firestar & Spiral Arm, taking into account that folks from Babbage Society are more than once pulling the strings around Mariesa van Huyten, and in one case they're even taking an eye contact with her lest they miss pivot point in cliological scenario unfolding, on the cusp thereof she could have lost her life the way she was attacked by a disguised assassin?
DeleteVery, very loose. Some characters fron ITCOTB do make cameo appearances in FIRESTAR.
DeleteDear Mr Flynn:
ReplyDeleteI would like to get contact with you concerning our request to translate and publish one of your stories in the Estonian language in our SF magazine. But I found out your old e-mail address (from the old livejournal blog) was defunct. All the best, Raul Sulbi raulsulbi@gmail.com
Dear Mr. Flynn,
ReplyDeleteRe-reading In the Country of the Blind, I became curious about the use of certain words to produce subliminal effects during conversation. Can you suggest some terms/avenues for my further research? Regards, Wende at berace10@gmail.com
Mr. Flynn, I love Eifelheim! I listened to the Overdrive audiobook twice, then bought the hardback and am reading it again. I cannot believe how wonderfully and thoroughly you blended authentic Catholicism with science fiction!!! To be teaching catechism to aliens!? Thank you for not flinching on the truth of the faith or the Church. I was reading sections to my husband (also a church history buff) before I researched you and I said, “this author has GOT to be authentically Catholic!!! No one writes like this!!!” Also, my husband’s family is German (Reiter) so I had fun asking him to translate certain words. Please tell me which of your other books are as steeped in knowledge of the faith? Or do you weave it into your characters naturally? I am so excited to find you as an author. I’m so tired of science fiction that treats religion as arcane or morality as separate from any religious foundation. Thank you so much for this fantastic book that I will reread for years.
ReplyDelete