Serdar Yegulalp

This book was a very pleasant surprise. It had no reviews on Amazon, and wasn't even in the GoodReads database when I started -- but I'm optimistic that it will become better known. It's very well-written and has engaging characters -- the two most important factors in my enjoyment of any story. It also had several at first disparate plotlines that gradually came together in the end, which always makes for a satisfying read.

In fact, although I read the book as a Kindle loan, I've gone back and purchased it. I don't know how soon I'll read it again, but I though the author deserved some compensation for all the work he put into this very enjoyable and thought-provoking read.

"Flight of the Vajra" has several layers: the personal development of the three primary characters, a mystery-sabotage-investigation plot, and a conflict - both illustrated and explicitly debated - between two contrasting lifestyles: Highend and Old Way. Personally, I enjoyed the way the three streams interwove, but I'm not sure that everyone would enjoy the long conversations between the characters on all three topics. *I* enjoyed them, but much about this book hit close to home.

The heart of the book is its exploration of personal connection, meaning, and the trade-offs inherent in any lifestyle choices. The story is set up to bias the reader in favor of the Old Way as a viable, even superior choice, but Yegulalp ultimately pulls no punches about the sometimes painful consequences of that choice -- which is another strength of the book.

I'd give the story 4.5 stars, but have to round down to 4 because the one weakness is in the villains. Yegulalp does a lovely job with his protagonist team. They unfold gradually as individuals, growing and changing along the way. They come across as real people. The villains, on the other hand, seem over-the-top in their broad-stroke nastiness. The final showdown does come across as the inevitable manisfestation of the technology and the contrasting lifestyles -- but at the same time it felt more like something out of a comic book than the detailed world of the rest of the story. I would have liked a bit more nuance to and insight into the Bad Guys.

It's hard to do "Vajra" real justice in a review. You can read the summary in the book description, and the plot is too intricate to spell out. I can only say that it works well as adventurous speculative/science fiction and as a philosophical reflection on the choices we make as human beings and what their consequences are to our humanity itself.… (meer)