Corbett’s handling of this and other parenting issues in the book is poignant and assured. Everything that Zeke has found out about the fliers makes him loathe them, but he also understands that this is a society in flux, and he needs to give his son the best chance for the future. His ex-wife wants their adored three year old son to undergo the gene manipultion and surgery to become a flier. While unravelling Peri’s background to track her down, and in particular find out how a poor girl became a flier, Zeke is faced with a nightmare decision. People risk their jobs to pass on information, a rebel group of fliers uses guerrilla tactics to access data, and overworked and underfunded police are still able to bring people to account. But in a world of bad guys, there are still good guys. Of course the big drug company is making rules to suit themselves, human rights are being abused, people are killed, there is corruption in high places, deep divisions between fliers and non-fliers are being entrenched. This is still a relatively new phenomenon, and society is still trying to work out the rules. Who doesn’t want to be able to fly? The long-held dream has now become a reality for a favoured few. The details of the world and how it has changed from the present day are lightly sketched in, but what she does describe in detail is the development of human flight and the price that is being paid by individuals and society. Zeke, too, initially seems to be cut from PI cliché cardboard, but very rapidly becomes established as a good man in a hard place, as issues in the case he is investigating, and his own family, overlap.Ĭorbett has created a future world that is horrifying to contemplate, but also exciting and challenging to experience.
She’s a different person by the end of the book, and it was very satisfying to be part of that journey with her. Peri’s initial terror-fuelled flight seems a bit ditsy, but she’s a girl with a lot of growing up to do, and who faces down a series of physical and emotional challenges with great resilience.
The story is told in alternate chapters from the points of view of the frightened teenager, Peri, who finds the body, grabs the baby and runs (well, flies, actually) and Zeke, the PI hired by Peri’s employer to track her down and retrieve the baby. It could have many labels: speculative fiction, urban fantasy, futuristic thriller, but I suggest you put the labels aside, and just go along for the ride. So why then does she throw it all away?ĭespite the dead body found on the first page, and one of the narrators being a hard-bitten PI, ‘When we have wings’ is not your classic crime novel. Peri, a poor girl from the regions, will sacrifice anything to get her wings and join this elite, but the price is higher than she could have imagined. The dream of being able to fly is now a physical reality, but only the rich and powerful can afford the surgery, drugs and gene manipulation to become fliers.
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