365 Days of Books

My first ever e-book! I bought and downloaded this book and read it on my Palm Zire. It took longer to read than I expected for a 193 page book. Reading a few inches at a time is slow but I got better at keeping a steady scroll and was closer to a natural reading rythym by the end. I suppose that reading on a small screen would aid in concentration for reading texts of for people who are distracted by the surrounding words.

For Love of Mother-Not by Alan Dean Foster is the story of a young boy with mysterious background and talent. Flinx is "adopted" for a fee from what is essentially a government run slave auction. His Mother-Not, Mother Mastiff, isn't quite sure why she chose him - she wasn't even looking for a slave or companion. Flinx can sometimes read the emotions of people around him. Can he also influence them?

Two sets of people are looking for Flinx: the group that genetically engineered him as part of an experiment on furthering humanity and the Moral Enforcers who want to stop the experiments. Interesting conflict comes when it appears that the experimenters, who have kidnapped Mother Mastiff in order to use her to influence Flinx, are shown to have cared deeply for Flinx and had provided him with a loving childhood until their organization was disrupted by the law enforcers. At one point Flinx sees the law enforcers coming as rescuers only to be battered by the hate and revulsion that they feel for him. And, to make it even more confusing, the renegade group no longer seems to see Flinx as a person but as validation that their techniques can work for good; Flinx's life is soon secondary to proving their point.

I'd like to read the other Flinx books to see where Alan Dean Foster goes with the story. FLinx and Mother Mastiff are engaging characters.