The novel “Reunion” by Alan Dean Foster was published for the first time in 2001. It’s part of the Pip and Flinx series.
Flinx has come to Earth to find information about Meliorare, the corporation that conducted secret and illegal genetic experiments that also led to his birth. The information is stored in a well-guarded facility, and Flinx befriends one of the guards, influencing her using his mental powers.
Breaking into the facility is only the first stage of Flinx’s plan, and he must enter the computer system without setting off any alarms. To do this, he has to handle an artificial intelligence to which he has to ask the right questions. When he finally thinks he’s got the information he’s been looking for, Flinx sees it disappear before his eyes. He manages to trace the intervention in someone who’s hiding behind a company on a spaceship that is en route to the planet Pyrassis, within the Aann empire.
“Reunion” is set during the time Flinx is trying to piece together the operations of the Meliorare which led, among other things, to his birth. This novel forms part of a larger story arc involving Flinx and his minidrag Pip. Alan Dean Foster included in this novel a self-contained storyline with various explanations regarding the protagonist’s past but a complete understanding of his story requires having read the previous novels in the series.
Mental powers are one of Flinx’s peculiarities but they are unreliable even though they seem to grow with him. He uses them to influence a guard of the facility he wants to break into but only because he needs her help to get into it. Flinx is an outlaw but only because he’s the product of an illegal experiment and has many moral qualms.
The search for information regarding his origins on Earth is only the beginning of one of Flinx’s adventures. “Reunion” includes trips in space and especially to various planets with many twists and turns. Flinx finds himself in dangerous situations of various kinds that constantly force him to use all of his skills to get out of them. His mental powers are unreliable, so over the years, he developed other skills as well.
Alan Dean Foster began this series when he was still a young writer but developed it over decades in which he accumulated considerable experience. This allowed him to write a story arc consisting of good novels with lots of action and a fast pace. Twists and revelations are used to slowly unravel Flinx’s past.
A good portion of “Reunion” is set on the planet Pyrassis, part of the Aann empire. They’re a very aggressive reptilian-looking species with always strained relations with the Humanx Commonwealth. The Aann appear in several works set in the great fictional universe of the Humanx Commonwealth of which the cycle of Pip and Flinx is only a part. Again, Alan Dean Foster includes important information about the Aann to make it clear to readers with limited knowledge of this fictional universe how dangerous it is for Flinx to enter the Aann empire.
Overall, “Reunion” is a good chapter in the adventures of Pip and Flinx. It contains enough events and explanations to be enjoyable as a standalone story but to be fully appreciated it’s best to read the entire series with these two protagonists. It’s available on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
