A welcome return to the Metrozone and the adventures of Samuil Petrovitch. In the previous volume of the Metrozone Trilogy, Equations of Life, he took on and defeated the sentient intelligence of the New Machine Jihad, devised a set of equations that completely redefined physics, and got the girl. Now he’s back, and the book opens with a test of those same equations, the success of which catapults Petrovich to instant worldwide fame. The trouble is, the Metrozone is under attack from without: the Outies, those people sealed outside the M25 when the Metrozone was created, are invading from the north, gradually encroaching in to the nominally safe areas of a city only just being rebuilt after the depredations of the New Machine Jihad – oh, and someone’s trying to kill Petrovitch (again).

As the Outies push further in to North London, Petrovitch takes off on a desperate attempt to reach his police officer wife. It’s a journey fraught with peril, and in the course of attempting to reach her, he has to enlist the aid of the New Machine Jihad, which he secreted away from the world at the end of the previous book rather than destroy a genuine Artificial Intelligence. His new interface with the Jihad gives him an unprecedented amount of power, and like it or not, he realises that to rescue his wife he is going to have to use that power and assume control of the war effort against the Outies if they’re going to be defeated. This he does to great effect, using various deceptions and evasions to channel command to himself.

Petrovitch is, despite his bluster, a humane and decent hero, as witnessed by his rescue of an oprhan girl from behind the line of the Outies’ advance, but he’s also a very good war-leader, devising a ruthless strategy to stop the Outies and using the powers at his disposal to save his adopted home city. Unfortunately, the consequences of the defense are to reveal to Petrovitch’s enemies the existence of the New Machine Jihad, which was what the CIA were looking to confirm the existence of all along.

Theories of Flight is a thrill-packed and enjoyable slice of dystopian thriller,  and just as enjoyable as its predecessor. I look forward to completing the journey in the final volume, Degrees of Freedom.

Bookmark to