In the Lion's Mouth is the third
book in Michael Flynn's science fiction series that began with The
January Dancer and was followed by Up Jim River. I'd
recommend reading those before reading this one; it's not strictly
necessary in order to understand what's going on during In the
Lion's Mouth, but it certainly helps.
In the far future, humanity is spread
across countless worlds dominated by two great powers in a
centuries-long cold war, the despotic Confederation of central worlds
and loose alliance that opposes it called the United league of the
periphery. Donovan buigh was once a Shadow, an agent of the
confederation's elite intelligence service- before he was subjected
to experimental mind altering-procedure that was supposed to create a
single man with the skills and expertise of an entire team of experts
but instead left him with huge gaps in his memory and a fragmented
mind split between multiple quarreling personalities. He ended up in
the Periphery, a broken man quietly drinking himself into his grave
until he found himself drawn back into the long struggle between the
and Confederation and league, now defending his new home from the
machinations of the Confederation and it's rulers, the mysterious
oligarchs known only as Those of Name.
He has finally started to gain a
measure of peace and purpose in his new life when he finds himself
forced back into the old one by a Confederate agent he met decades
before (during The Januaryy Dancer), Ravn Olafsdottr. She abducts
Donovan and smuggles him back into the Confederation- but not on
behalf of Those of Name. The Shadows are wracked by an internal
struggle between those loyal to Those of Name and those who now seek
to overthrow them, and the latter want Donovan- less for who he is
than for who he used to be, in the long empty gaps of his memory.
Donovan eventually agrees to join them, putting him on a collision
course with some of the deadliest killers in the galaxy, the truth
about his own identity, and Those of Name themselves.
In the Lion's Mouth is a highly
enjoyable book and a fine continuation of the series that started
with The January Dancer. I loved the central characters
Donovan buigh and Ravn Olafsdottr, and the plot is interesting and
exciting. There are a number of well-done action scenes, and Flynn's
talent for description in general is again in evidence.
The framing device of the book is that
the story is being told by Ravn Olafsdottr, who has snuck back into
the League after the main events of the book to bring Donovan's story
to Bridget ban, a long-time veteran of the League's own intelligence
service, who has spent her life on the opposite side of the long cold
war between the two great powers, and her daughter with Donovan,
Mearana. This proves to very effective, both because it provides a
different viewpoint from the previous books in the series and because
of the atmosphere it creates when the book occasionally shifts from
the main narrative back to the frame story. The tension of the
interactions between two lifelong enemies sharing a brief truce and
the stress and anxiety of Bridget ban and her daughter as Ravn tells
herstory - and mockingly refuses to reveal ahead of time if Donovan
will be alive or dead at the end of it- are palpable, and this adds a
lot.
My one initial disappointment with In
the Lion's Mouth was that it is relatively constrained in scope,
focusing on just a few worlds. Consequently, it doesn't have the same
variety and epic sense of scale as its predecessors, which took the
reader all the periphery and beyond. In the Lion's Mouth, by
contrast, is relatively modest in scope, concentrating on a few
planets. I say “initial” because once I had adjusted to it I
thought it worked quite well for the sort of story the author is
telling here, and Flynn shows that he can still do a good story in
this setting while working on a more constrained scale. The narrower
scope of the main story also fits well thematically with the setting,
adding to the contrast between the despotic Confederation and the
freewheeling diversity of the League, and complements the
claustrophobic anxiety of the frame story.
I highly recommend In the Lion's
Mouth for space opera fans, though I would encourage people who
haven't read The January Dancer and Up Jim River to do
so first. The entire series is well-worth getting into.
