Very Hard Choices, 2

by Spider Robinson

Book Overview

After the shattering death of his beloved wife, aging baby-boomer Russell Walker had wanted only to hide from the world in the woods of British Columbia. Instead, an old college acquaintance called... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1439133034
• ISBN13: 9781439133033
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Baen
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Great, with two small issues

As always, Spider's writing takes you someplace you never expected, and never dreamed you would enjoy so much. This sequel is great, but had just a bit too much backstory interspersed for me. If the backstory had been more of a real story running in parallel, it would have been fantastic. I very much liked the return of the Nika and Zudie, and the way their characters were developed out. Jesse was a great entry. The other minor irritations were way too much emphasis on pot smoking, and Spider ended the book in the same way as the first one - you really don't expect a sequel. But I sure hope he does one. :) -Paul

The Past Has Returned

Very Hard Choices (2008) is the second SF novel in the Russell Walker series, following Very Bad Deaths. In the previous volume, Russell Walker and his friends attracted the attention of a serial murderer for whom they were searching. The killer trapped them in Walker's house, but Zandor Zudenigo used his powers to cause the man to disbelieve in himselves. They buried the body down by the stream. In this novel, Russell Walker is a columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail. He telecommutes from Heron Island in Vancouver Bay. The house is well-built, but rather simple. His office in the back yard is extremely comfortable, but downright rustic. Russell has lived alone in this house since the death of his wife Susan. Jesse is Russell's son. He lives in New York and works in public relations. Jesse earns much more than his father and has all the multitudinous attractions of the City. He blamed Russell for the death of his mother and they have been estranged ever since. Nika Mandic is a Vancouver police officer. She has recently been promoted to Detective Constable. But Nika is still driving the same old 1989 Honda Accord. Zandor Zudenigo is an involuntary telepath. He cannot shut it off and most thoughts from other people are painful to him. He lives alone and unnoticed on Coveney Island within Vancouver Bay. In this story, Charles Haden is a former CIA operative. He drives across the border without any problems. He doesn't even need one of his passports. A few simple questions and he is in Canada. A half hour drive and he is within Vancouver. Haden changes license plates at the airport and discards his current identity on the Oak Street Bridge over the Fraser River. By the time he reaches the city limits, he is Thomas McKinnon. Then he abandons his car in the police impound yard. McKinnon is looking for Nika. She had her cousin make a simple query about Zandor and now McKinnon is on her case. When he catches up with her, McKinnon fires a GPS-snitch at her car bumper and then falls back to follow her movements on his transceiver. Unfortunately, Nika notices him on her tail, seems to lose him, and then heads for Heron Island. Russell is entertaining Jesse in his home on Heron Island. Nika interrupts their tete-a-tete and takes Russell aside to announce her bad news. Jesse counterinterrupts and learns more than he expects about his father and his friends. Then they discover the GPS-snitch. Russell has not been able to contact Zandor since the previous events, but he tries again. He eventually takes a Zodiac over to Coveney, but loses the motor and his cellphone on the way. Luckily, Zandor is on the island and rescues him. Unluckily, Russell has a collapsed lung on his way back. This tale faces Russell and his friends with a crisis. A man that Zandor has known and hated many years ago is coming for him. He can hide, but his friends cannot. Sooner or later the operative is going to find them. Meanwhile, Russell

Very Hard and Very Surprising Choices

In Very Bad Deaths aging baby boomer Russell Walker had retreated to a British Columbia island following his wife's death and only wanted to be left alone. His solitude is interrupted by his old college roommate Zudie, aka Smelly, who is so telepathic he can't stand to be around many people, but he had heard the mind of a psychotic killer planning a gruesome crime and seeks out Russell for help. They contact Nika, a very straightlaced though unlucky Vancouver police officer, and the unlikely trio manage to defeat the psycho. In Very Hard Choices the trio is reunited when Zudie needs protection from a retired CIA agent still on the trail decades after Zudie's escape from the top-secret MK Ultra project in the 1960s. The agent zeroes in on Russell's place, led there by a bug placed on Nika's car. Russell's estranged son, visiting from New York, gets involved in the efforts to protect Zudie. Russell's attempts to help his friends are complicated when his exertions lead to a collapsed lung, something author Spider Robinson is all too familiar with. The tale includes a series of flashbacks to Russell and Zudie's college days, when Zudie was part of MK Ultra and found a close friend in Oksana, another member of the project. Throughout the story, all of the principals, including the agent, are faced with very hard choices that could change them, and perhaps the world, forever. Other reviewers may carp about Spider's endorsement of Canada's health care system, but it should be remembered that if Spider were living in the United States, he would probably be steeply in debt because of his lung condition, assuming he were still alive. Instead, he lives in a more civilized country that cares about more than just its wealthiest citizens.

Now this is serious stuff....

The sequel to Very Bad Deaths was something I had been waiting for with some trepidation: what story was there left to tell? The thrilling yet non-graphic horror that the former book had titillated me with should have warned me. Although I had been prepared for some more of that insightful prose in that trademark way that Spider writes in, I did not expect that he would take the tale of the suffering telepath Zudie more than one step further. Everyone thinks that being a telepath may be a mild nuisance if you cannot turn the talent off at will. But this tale makes you feel what he feels and makes you understand why he had to retreat into obscurity... damn.. 't is difficult to not spoil the fun for would-be readers. Let me just wrap this up by stating "yes, he's done it again, he keeps evolving, and the stories keep getting more interesting and insightful each step of the way". See if you can read the introductory chapters over there at the Baen Books website and then keep away from this one... even if you have not read the first book.

A very satisfying read

Very Hard Choices revisits the characters introduced in Very Bad Deaths, and again presents them with difficult, painful, life-threatening circumstances that force them to consider both the ethics and the morality of the choices they face. To say much more might upset certain surprising turns in the storyline, but suffice it to say that the first reviewer of this book got it wrong. The story does not suggest the US is in danger of being turned into a "religious dictatorship," nor is the story's antagonist working towards that goal. The threat, rather, is framed as a takeover by a very small cabal of extremely wealthy, powerful, and conscience-less autocrats. Sounds more like real life than science fiction to me! If you're an ardent right-winger, you probably won't like some of this book's premises. Everyone else is in for an enjoyable, and thought-provoking ride.