Adventures of Pip & Flinx
11 primary works
Book 1
Flinx was just a freckle-faced, redheaded kid with green eyes and a strangely compelling stare when Mather Mastiff first saw him an the auctioneer's block. One hundred credits and he was hers.
For years the old woman was his only family. She loved him, fed him, taught him everything she knew—even let him keep the deadly flying dragon he called Pip. But when Mother Mastiff mysteriously disappears, Flinx tails her kidnappers on a dangerous journey. Across the forests and swamps of the winged world called Moth, their only weapons are Pip’s venom . . . and Flinx’s unusual talent.
Book 2
Here was a wide-open world for any venture a man might scheme. The planet attracted unwary travelers, hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers—a teeming, constantly shifting horde that provideda comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his pet mini-dragon, Pip. With his odd talents, the pickings were easy enough so that Flinx did not have to be dishonest . . . most of the time.
In fact, it hardly seemed dishonest at all to steal a starmap from a dead body that didn’t really need it anymore. But Flinx forgot one crucial point. He should have wondered why the body was dead in the first place.
Book 3
It is a strange childhood for a kid, to be adopted by the restless Mother Mastiff and raised in the bustling marketplace of Drallar. Flinx never knew the mom and dad who abandoned him years ago. In fact, his birth has always been shrouded in mystery. But Flinx eventually discovers that his unknown parents have left him a curious legacy–extraordinary mental powers that are both a marvelous gift and a dreaded curse.
This double-edged legacy will lead Flinx, along with his loyal protector, the mini-dragon Pip, on a harrowing journey in search of the truth . . . about who he is and where he comes from. It is a daring adventure that brings him to another world–and into the clutches of one of the most evil and powerful men in the galaxy. . . .
Book 7
Using his enhanced empathic abilities, Flinx finesses his way into a top-secret security installation on Earth. Once there, he bamboozles a sophisticated AI program into releasing classified information about the Meliorare Society, the sect of renegade eugenicists whose experiments with human beings had horrified the civilized universe more than twenty years ago. After all, as one of the few Meliorare experiments to survive, Flinx has a right to know about his past. Especially since his telepathic powers seem to be evolving. The question is, evolving into what? The excruciating headaches afflicting Flinx with increasing frequency make him wonder if he will be alive to find out. . . .
Book 8
It’s a good thing Flinx is no stranger to trouble, because he’s swimming in it. Even before the latest murderous attack by a new gang of assailants, there seems no end to people determined to arrest, examine, or kill him. To add insult to all that injury, Flinx has been spirited away and enlisted in a battle against a monstrous extra-galactic threat. Hidden behind the Great Emptiness, in a place where it seems matter and energy have never been, there is only evil. Pure evil that is approaching him, accelerating.
Against such a quintessence of colossal evil what can one puny human and a formidable mini-drag protector do? Flinx must tell someone or go out of his already addled mind. Choosing a confidant is easy: Clarity Held, a crush he hasn’t seen in six years. She is a young woman who has clearly gone on with her life in ways that (he soon learns) don’t necessarily include Flinx.
Whatever happens, Flinx makes up his mind to act quickly. His decision is the beginning of a terrifying, high-stakes adventure through perilous new realms that will rocket him into the very heart of danger–and into the arms of the only woman he’s ever loved. As he and Pip bravely travel to a place where no man or mini-drag has gone before, Flinx discovers he has a few more friends than he thought–and far more enemies than he ever imagined.
Book 9
Never have the cares of the universe lain so heavily on Flinx’s shoulders, nor the forces arrayed against him seemed so invincible. Pursued by a newly revealed sect of doomsday fanatics, hunted by factions inside and outside the Commonwealth for transgressions real and imagined, expected to single-handedly avert a looming galactic crisis (or bear responsibility for the consequences), Flinx can be forgiven for feeling a slight touch of melancholy.
There’s only one solution for what ails Flinx, according to his ship’s AI. But taking time off is tricky business. With an increasing number of enemies chasing him with ever-greater enthusiasm, Flinx must find a getaway shrouded in obscurity. Jast, a planet smack in the middle of nowhere, is the perfect locale.
Yet even in a place where hardly anyone’s ever seen a human, Flinx and trouble can’t stay separated for long. Unfortunately, Flinx hasn’t a clue that his vacation paradise is in reality a danger zone of the highest magnitude. And by the time he learns the truth, it may be too late.
Book 10
In the outer depths of the universe lies the Great Emptiness, where something dreadful lurks, hidden behind a great gravitational lens of dark matter. Something horrific that howls and writhes and rages across three hundred million light-years of space–and is now heading straight for the Commonwealth and moving faster all the time.
One slim chance exists to avert catastrophe, and only Flinx can take it. Roaming the galaxy is a conscious planet-size weapons system, the legacy of a long-extinct race. As Flinx is the only one who has ever experienced mental contact with the machine, it is his job to find the powerful alien artifact and coax it into joining the battle against the behemoth from beyond.
So Pip and Flinx valiantly sail into the unknown aboard their little spaceship, which is immediately forced down for emergency repairs on planet Arrawd, home to less advanced sentients and therefore off-limits to space travelers. But what with Arrawd being very beautiful, and Flinx being Flinx, this particular rule doesn’t stand a chance.
Now, Flinx is no stranger to murderous attacks and stalking assassins—evading them occupies most of his waking hours–but to be besieged by hordes bent on worshipping him as a god? Worse still, escaping this fate is going to be as impossible as fulfilling his dire mission. What’s a deity to do?
Book 12
Wandering out there in some remote region of the galaxy is a gargantuan sentient Tar-Aiym weapons’ system. All Flinx has to do—while his pals look after his injured love Clarity Held—is find the hefty object and persuade it to knock out the monstrous evil that is hurtling through space to waste the entire Commonwealth.
A no-brainer, really, especially for Flinx, who is never without his loyal entourage of official snoops, crazed zealots, assorted goons, and the occasional assassin. Indeed, the boy wonder and his mini-drag, Pip, are eager to commence their heroic task . . . just as soon as Flinx visits Visaria—a dangerously depraved planet—to convince himself that humans are indeed worth saving.
The chances of stumbling across high moral values and utopian ideals don’t look promising–what with Flinx playing a lawless Pied Piper to a gang of lying, thieving juvenile delinquents. But prospects really go south when Flinx runs afoul of the corrupt planet’s ruthless crime king.
Still, life is full of surprises, and Flinx is about to get smacked by a passel of them—by turns devastating, heartening, and positively jaw-dropping. For although Flinx came to Visaria to plumb the enigma of humankind, there’s another mystery waiting here, a shocking clue about his own shadowy past.
Book 13
“I know who your father is . . . Gestalt.” A shocked Flinx hears these dying words from one of the renegade eugenicists whose experiments with humans twenty-odd years ago shocked the galaxy . . . and spawned Flinx. So Flinx and his minidrag, Pip, venture to Gestalt, an out-of-the-way planet perfect for someone who never wants to be found—disregarding the advice of those who think Flinx could make better use of his time locating the ancient, sentient weapons platform that could be the galaxy’s only chance of stopping the exterminating scourge that’s fast approaching. Flinx might agree with them—but the quest for patrimony wins out. (Sorry, galaxy!)
Could Gestalt supply the key to Flinx’s shadowy past and strange powers? An eccentric loner in a remote area could be the father Flinx has never stopped searching for, perhaps the only person who can unravel the mystery of his birth and his amazing, agonizing powers.
Unfortunately for Flinx, Gestalt also hosts a resident bounty hunter who’s just learned about the stupendous reward offered for a certain dead redhead. Flinx gets a chance to test his adversary’s skills when our hero’s skimmer is blasted out of the sky and into a raging river in the middle of nowhere—a nowhere of impassable terrain and ravenous, carnivorous beasts.
But hey, what’s one more impossible challenge for someone who’s spent his life defying the odds and escaping the inescapable? Flinx has one thing going for him . . . plenty of experience.
Book 14
Flinx is the only one with any chance of stopping the evil colossus barreling in to destroy the Humanx Commonwealth (and everything else in the Milky Way). His efforts take him to the land of his mortal enemies, the bloodthirsty AAnn, where chances are excellent that Flinx may be executed. And he must also seek out an ancient sentient weapons platform wandering around the galaxy and then communicate with it, a powwow that could very well fry his brain. Then there are the oblivion-craving assassins determined to stop Flinx before he can prevent total annihilation. With a future that rosy, it’s no surprise that Flinx is flirting with disaster. Still, he’s no quitter. Now he’s going to need every ounce of his know-how, because he’s venturing to places where no one’s ever been, to do what no one’s ever done, and where his deadliest enemy is so close it’s invisible.
Praise for Flinx Transcendent
“One last grand adventure.”—Publishers Weekly
“A rousing goodbye [for] one of the most popular duos in science fiction.”—Charleston Post and Courier
“The grand finale gathers pace and brings in numerous other plot elements to build an enjoyable and exciting conclusion. Fans of the series will certainly be satisfied.”—SFcrowsnest
Book 15
"Empathic Flinx and his minidrag Pip have saved the universe more times than they can count, but the return of an old friend pulls the duo from their retirement and plunges them into a story of intrigue and imagination. The planet of Largess has recently opened itself to trade with the human-dominated Commonwealth. But when the daughter of a powerful chieftan goes missing, authorities believe a covert agent to be the cause. They need someone to track down the princess and roust the troublemaker, and to do so without alerting the whole planet to their involvement. Can Pip and Flinx, perpetual fish out of water, save the day?"--