Falling Free

Miles Vorsokigan, Book 4

By: Lois McMaster Bujold

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what's wrong, and move on to the next job. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat, where a group of humanoids had been secretly, commercially bioengineered for working in free fall.

Could he just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation?

He hadn't anticipated a situation where the right thing to do was neither safe, nor in the rules. Leo adopted a thousand quaddies. Now all he had to do was teach them to be free.

©1988 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

Nebula Award Finalist, Best Novel, 1988

"Superb....Read, or you will be missing something extraordinary." (Chicago Sun-Times)

"Bujold's best work in my opinion." (Science Fiction Chronicle)

A new human species makes its preview.

Loved the quadis, hope to hear more about them! This is a story that deserves a sequel. I’m looking forward to one!

A novel that has implications for TODAY!

I am a huge Fan of Lois McMaster Bujold. This EXCELLENT novel shows how the idea of Human Cloning might be treated from a social and legal standpoint. When is a person NOT a person? Is an artificially designed and genetically altered living artifact really a "person"? Or are they "property"? If they are, what "rights" do they have if any? when is slavery NOT slavery? Who owns a person that has been designed and manufactured?

Then what happens to these "manufactured human artifacts" when technology bypasses them and makes them OBSOLETE? what then? Who will maintain the very expensive habitat that they require for survival when it becomes no longer financially feasible ? And most importantly, are PEOPLE, even manufactured ones, more important than money? what is the obligation of the corporation toward their "artifacts"? Dispose of them? Sterilize them and place them in institutions downside, where they will live short and painful lives as cripples? and what happens when these "artifacts" begin to form emotional bonds in defiance of the designers plans?

I continue to be fascinated by Lois Bujold's examination of social implications of a universe where people can be "gene cleaned", or redesigned, or even their sex changed, at will! Is a Woman who becomes a Man still a woman? (Civil Campaign) or can She/he take the place of a man? Is an 8 ft tall, female "super Soldier" with fangs, still a woman? or a thing? Is a planet full of MEN only who fear women as terrors beyond imagining who will control your mind with a glance from her evil eye...still PEOPLE. Or some sort of perverse wart on the universe that is best shoved aside?

BEST of all, it is FASCINATING reading! (and listening!) from a very good story teller! Wow COOL, GOOD BOOK. I have read it and listened to it SEVERAL times!

Terrific and thrilling story!

Beautifully performed, this thrilling story has many important aspects that mirror and inform issues in our world today.

Separate story in the Vorkosiverse

To start, this book is part of the Vorkosigan Saga series, but does not have any direct relation to the other books as the story is set 200 years ahead of the other books. The story explains the origin of the Quaddies, a strange race of four-armed (extra arms for legs) humans which we encounter also in the Miles books, particularly in Diplomatic Immunity.
Events and places in that book can be better understood if you have read Falling Free, but it is absolutely not necessary to do so. This book can be read on its own without the others, or the others without this one.

I give this book 4 stars because - even though the story is more simple than later novels, and things go a bit too easy (comparatively) - Lois McMaster Bujold once again mixes SF with moral questions and dilemmas in a pleasant way. What to do with a bio engineered race that their creators own, but are conscious. Being humans, it might be easy, but what if they are stranger still? What if they potentially form a threat to the human race? These questions are not answered, but cause different reactions in the various actors in the story.
Particularly interesting it becomes if the morality shifts or people overstep a moral boundary. What would you do?

Grover Gardner is one of the best readers and shows it here once more.

A great story!

Grover Gardner is just so excellent I love his narration. This is a great stand alone prequel story set in the Vorkosigan universe and well worth a listen. Bujold never fails with her character development and intriguing world building.

Couldn't pause!

Falling Free is enjoyable & thrilling. Good story. Grover Gardner's unhurried reading flawless. His voice does justice to Bujold's masterful writing.

Who needs feet?

Once again Lois drags me into another world, and surrounds me with marvelous characcters! This story is another example of why she is one of my favorite authors.

fun, slightly old fashioned.

Likely the best account of Zero-G welding techniques you'll read this year. extra words needed.

I love Lois

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favorite authors. She's right up there with people like Stephen King and David Weber. Her books are unique, a little off beat and filled with flawed and highly unlikely heroes. "Falling Free" is not an exception to this MO.

The protagonist is an partly burned out engineer by the name of Leo Graf ,who is known to be a good project manager and a good teacher of engineering. He normally moves into a project, trouble shoots it and fixes it and moves on. This time however, he runs into a habitat filled with bio-engineered humans, who have been genetically modified to live in space. They have four arms and no legs. Also, they are being treated as if they were not human, but assets, owned by a giant and heartless mega-corporation. Also, most of them are still basically children, very young and kept from any knowledge of the universe other than their own habitat.

Leo turns out to be much more than just an engineer. He is a hero. And Lois McMaster Bujold once again crafts a story about hope and heart; about overcoming huge odds; about love and sacrifice. I love this author and I'm sure you will too. And I'm just as sure you will love "Falling Free".

Grover Gardner does an excellent narration, capturing the feel of the book as well as the characters.

Ten stars for this book.

Brilliant

Wonderful underdog story to begin a long series!!! I’m listening to the series in recommended (chronological) order. The stage is set now with a principled and approachable protagonist (Leo), and the world building is well underway. Narration is great in my opinion. Can’t wait to start the next book!!!