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Flightless Falcon
From the author of the Renshai novels comes an exciting fantasy adventure, as one man fights to save his family through any means necessary
Tamison had been a miner until the cave-in that killed his brother and father left him with a paralyzing fear of venturing underground. With the passing years and the growth of his own new family, Tamison is willing to turn his hand to any trade that will feed his wife and children. But in a realm where guilds rule — and where his own guild canno longer support him — Tamison is forced to steal food or see his family starve. Caught in the act, Tamison is sentenced to four years on a chain gang.
And when he is finally released, he discovers that his family had been kidnapped. Now he's determined to rescue them — but he can't do it alone. To break into a seemingly impenetrable city, he will need the help of three unlikely a guard, a thief, and a fortune-teller...
Tamison had been a miner until the cave-in that killed his brother and father left him with a paralyzing fear of venturing underground. With the passing years and the growth of his own new family, Tamison is willing to turn his hand to any trade that will feed his wife and children. But in a realm where guilds rule — and where his own guild canno longer support him — Tamison is forced to steal food or see his family starve. Caught in the act, Tamison is sentenced to four years on a chain gang.
And when he is finally released, he discovers that his family had been kidnapped. Now he's determined to rescue them — but he can't do it alone. To break into a seemingly impenetrable city, he will need the help of three unlikely a guard, a thief, and a fortune-teller...
307 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 1, 2000
1 person is currently reading
96 people want to read
About the author
Mickey Zucker Reichert
89 books183 followersMickey Zucker Reichert (pseudonym for Miriam Susan Zucker Reichert) is an American fantasy fiction author of several best selling novels. Perhaps her most famous work is the epic Renshai series, which offers an intriguing perspective on traditional Norse mythology. She is also a parent and paediatrician with a soft spot for critters great and small. She has been known care for a veritable zoo of creatures, at times including mice, horses, snakes, llamas, parrots, squirrels, possums, and foxes.
Alongside her twenty-two novels, Reichert has also published one illustrated novella and fifty-plus short stories.
Alongside her twenty-two novels, Reichert has also published one illustrated novella and fifty-plus short stories.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 21, 2021
Some more primo woobie content from Mickey Zucker Reichert. If you are interested in watching a main character suffer, cry, and fail at things, these books are for you. If not, I'm sure it would be, as another reviewer says, "awkward to read." The section dividers in this book are sad birds. There is, admittedly, a lot of crying.
But in between that, it's got great action scenes, thrilling dramatic tension (holy shit), top notch funny tabletop banter between the party members (arguing over dog ownership, squabbling over dinner, and making NPCs extremely uncomfortable) and a quasi-gay friendship for the main character. What can I say, Reichert likes what she likes! And so do I. Wish I had spent my adolescence reading these books instead of wretched dnd novels where author self-inserts lick elf ears.
But in between that, it's got great action scenes, thrilling dramatic tension (holy shit), top notch funny tabletop banter between the party members (arguing over dog ownership, squabbling over dinner, and making NPCs extremely uncomfortable) and a quasi-gay friendship for the main character. What can I say, Reichert likes what she likes! And so do I. Wish I had spent my adolescence reading these books instead of wretched dnd novels where author self-inserts lick elf ears.
May 18, 2020
Awkward to read. The main character remains a rather pathetic, incapable loser until the last few dozen pages of the book, crying and screwing up at least once per chapter. The dialogue is uncomfortable and unrealistic, the characters aren’t believable in the slightest, and the magic is poorly developed, conveniently changed to suit plot lines, and then ends up being almost totally irrelevant. The plot is simple but off in a ‘going around your elbow to get to your ass’ kind of way. Most of the book feels like wasted time and the pace of travel is just bizarre. And if I have to read one more description about “ringlets of X-colored hair falling around her face” I may puke. Still, it’s an easy, quick read that I ended up finishing, so I have to give it 2 stars instead of one!
May 20, 2018
Shelf Life – Flightless Falcon Still Glides Pretty Well
Flightless Falcon is a light DAW fantasy by Mickey Zucker Reichert that first came out in paperback in July of 2001. Set in your typical fantasy land – lightly coated in magic but sans any fantastical creatures such as dragons, elves, dwarves, and the like – it follows the sad, luckless exploits of an ex-miner named Tamison made useless after a cave in kills his father and brother and leaves him trapped deep in the mine for a few days.
Afterwards, with a debilitating fear of both the dark and being underground, he’s unable to continue as a miner, yet too unskilled to get any other job. As such, he and his family live in dirt poverty for a decade or so until he finally decides to try stealing what they need instead of earning the money to buy it. Unfortunately he’s just as horrible at this as anything else he tries and ends up in jail for two years.
When he finally gets out, his family’s disappeared, so he adopts a stray dog and lives on the streets for a while. Then one day a guard finds him and tells him, “Hey, I know where your family is, and it’s bad, man, we should go save ’em.” So Tamison saves a fortune teller from some different guards, just for good measure, and the three of them go off to get his family back.
The plot evolves from there – I won’t go into much greater detail because I don’t want to give anything away. And while it’s an entertaining read, it does have its share of snags, though not often or strong enough to derail the overall experience. Still, might was well talk about ’em.
The majority of these moments occur due to the protagonist himself; Tamison’s constant suffering and depression and worthlessness gets a bit irritating after a while (and not a very long while). But you do end up genuinely sympathizing with him, at least for the most part – his self-pitying and constant sobbing are offset, personality-wise, by his intense love and devotion to his family’s welfare (though apparently it still isn’t strong enough for him to suck up his phobia and go back to working in the mines). The end result is a character that, while whiny enough that you want to reach into the pages and smack him, is still believable. The fact that a lot of his misfortune is brought on by bad luck and the overwhelming apathy of the world around him, instead of just his own sad uselessness, also helps save what might have been an otherwise excruciatingly sad-sack protagonist.
But ignore what Miss Reichert and the back cover of the book say – the real star of this story isn’t Tamison, the guard (Dallan), or the fortune teller (Rifkah). It’s the weasely bastard of a con man that Tamison can’t stop running into, the aptly-named Con. This guy’s selfish lack of a moral compass and unwillingness to sugarcoat anything for anyone is a breath of fresh air amidst the hopeful optimism and general boyscout do-goodery of the rest of the starring party, and his quick wit and blunt, sarcastic dialogue are at once impressive and entertaining to read in the circumstances. His back story’s also far more interesting than anything Tamison, Dallan, and Rifkah can come up with.
The story itself also grows past a simple “save some good guys from some bad guys” fetch quest to envelope a degree of political intrigue, subterfuge, loyalty dilemmas, and good ol’ fashion backstabbery. I won’t say anything more past the obvious (there’s a twist, you know there’s gonna be a twist, there’s always a twist) other than to say that the generic good-guy-bad-guy feeling the book’s own synopsis offers slips slowly into a more realistic, more satisfying realm of uncertain grayness that accompanies all conflicts between the world’s two rival governments, the one Tamison belongs to and the one he’s told is harboring his missing family.
Basically, each time you think this book is going to march the plot or one of the characters into Generic Land (and you will occasionally think this multiple times), the direction skews off at the last moment to surprise you. The result is that you end up reading the book in two minds: one for soaking up the story and being entertained, and one with a critical eye turned always on the author’s style, to see where it threatens to stray into unimpressiveness and how it keeps saving itself.
But don’t focus overly much on my criticisms – that’s just how I’ve been trained to talk about good writing, to search for the roughest spots and pick at them in order to see how the whole thing might be polished even more. The reason this book is so easy to criticize is because its weak spots are few and manageable and therefor easy to cover and be done with in the length of a blog post. The overall impression I came away with is still one of a fun, thoughtful, imaginative tale, at times suspenseful, at times moving, and always deeply visual. I didn’t mention the detailed visual descriptions did I? Oh well, I just did. Now you know they’re there.
It’s not going to turn into the next blockbuster fantasy franchise, but if you find it in your used book store, there are less-enjoyable ways to spend your reading time. I recommend Flightless Falcon to anyone who enjoys well-written, character-driven fantasy and doesn’t need it to last through a dozen sequels.
Flightless Falcon is a light DAW fantasy by Mickey Zucker Reichert that first came out in paperback in July of 2001. Set in your typical fantasy land – lightly coated in magic but sans any fantastical creatures such as dragons, elves, dwarves, and the like – it follows the sad, luckless exploits of an ex-miner named Tamison made useless after a cave in kills his father and brother and leaves him trapped deep in the mine for a few days.
Afterwards, with a debilitating fear of both the dark and being underground, he’s unable to continue as a miner, yet too unskilled to get any other job. As such, he and his family live in dirt poverty for a decade or so until he finally decides to try stealing what they need instead of earning the money to buy it. Unfortunately he’s just as horrible at this as anything else he tries and ends up in jail for two years.
When he finally gets out, his family’s disappeared, so he adopts a stray dog and lives on the streets for a while. Then one day a guard finds him and tells him, “Hey, I know where your family is, and it’s bad, man, we should go save ’em.” So Tamison saves a fortune teller from some different guards, just for good measure, and the three of them go off to get his family back.
The plot evolves from there – I won’t go into much greater detail because I don’t want to give anything away. And while it’s an entertaining read, it does have its share of snags, though not often or strong enough to derail the overall experience. Still, might was well talk about ’em.
The majority of these moments occur due to the protagonist himself; Tamison’s constant suffering and depression and worthlessness gets a bit irritating after a while (and not a very long while). But you do end up genuinely sympathizing with him, at least for the most part – his self-pitying and constant sobbing are offset, personality-wise, by his intense love and devotion to his family’s welfare (though apparently it still isn’t strong enough for him to suck up his phobia and go back to working in the mines). The end result is a character that, while whiny enough that you want to reach into the pages and smack him, is still believable. The fact that a lot of his misfortune is brought on by bad luck and the overwhelming apathy of the world around him, instead of just his own sad uselessness, also helps save what might have been an otherwise excruciatingly sad-sack protagonist.
But ignore what Miss Reichert and the back cover of the book say – the real star of this story isn’t Tamison, the guard (Dallan), or the fortune teller (Rifkah). It’s the weasely bastard of a con man that Tamison can’t stop running into, the aptly-named Con. This guy’s selfish lack of a moral compass and unwillingness to sugarcoat anything for anyone is a breath of fresh air amidst the hopeful optimism and general boyscout do-goodery of the rest of the starring party, and his quick wit and blunt, sarcastic dialogue are at once impressive and entertaining to read in the circumstances. His back story’s also far more interesting than anything Tamison, Dallan, and Rifkah can come up with.
The story itself also grows past a simple “save some good guys from some bad guys” fetch quest to envelope a degree of political intrigue, subterfuge, loyalty dilemmas, and good ol’ fashion backstabbery. I won’t say anything more past the obvious (there’s a twist, you know there’s gonna be a twist, there’s always a twist) other than to say that the generic good-guy-bad-guy feeling the book’s own synopsis offers slips slowly into a more realistic, more satisfying realm of uncertain grayness that accompanies all conflicts between the world’s two rival governments, the one Tamison belongs to and the one he’s told is harboring his missing family.
Basically, each time you think this book is going to march the plot or one of the characters into Generic Land (and you will occasionally think this multiple times), the direction skews off at the last moment to surprise you. The result is that you end up reading the book in two minds: one for soaking up the story and being entertained, and one with a critical eye turned always on the author’s style, to see where it threatens to stray into unimpressiveness and how it keeps saving itself.
But don’t focus overly much on my criticisms – that’s just how I’ve been trained to talk about good writing, to search for the roughest spots and pick at them in order to see how the whole thing might be polished even more. The reason this book is so easy to criticize is because its weak spots are few and manageable and therefor easy to cover and be done with in the length of a blog post. The overall impression I came away with is still one of a fun, thoughtful, imaginative tale, at times suspenseful, at times moving, and always deeply visual. I didn’t mention the detailed visual descriptions did I? Oh well, I just did. Now you know they’re there.
It’s not going to turn into the next blockbuster fantasy franchise, but if you find it in your used book store, there are less-enjoyable ways to spend your reading time. I recommend Flightless Falcon to anyone who enjoys well-written, character-driven fantasy and doesn’t need it to last through a dozen sequels.
November 8, 2019
The narration was very stilted and awkward. I was constantly being told what the characters felt rather than shown. Heavy-handed messages. Some decent plot points but mostly glad to be through it.
May 11, 2020
Highly enjoyable, needs a sequel!
May 16, 2022
This is her worst fantasy novel, utterly forgettable.
August 20, 2025
Started out good but seems like the writer changed their mind in the middle of the story.
January 6, 2026
Meh.
Incidentally , I read the second one of this series when I was a kid because my mom had it. Lol.
Incidentally , I read the second one of this series when I was a kid because my mom had it. Lol.
October 13, 2011
This could have been so much better. The story did engage me and I did enjoy reading it, but the descriptions were lacking and the characters were a bit... off at times. Things seemed a bit overdramatic and there were plotholes.
But like I said before it was still a good read. Not a must have but if it's on your shelf then its worth picking up.
But like I said before it was still a good read. Not a must have but if it's on your shelf then its worth picking up.
May 8, 2015
Reichart did well with this one, a tale of a father searching to save his family.
December 9, 2023
Read mid to late 2009. This was interesting. Not what I was expecting, as not your typical protagonist. The MC was hapless in many ways but he was real for all that. Worth reading.
December 30, 2013
I really in joyed this one, it stayed at a steady pace with a lot of ups and downs. But things can't always end with the happy ending. And things did work out for Tamison and his family in a way.
Want to read
March 17, 2014I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12540348
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12540348
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews