And here’s Alan Dean Foster to tell us a little of the thinking behind the latest “Pip & Flinx” novel, Trouble Magnet:

In his old age (he's 26) Flinx is souring on sentience.  In Trouble Magnet, he decides to spend some time on Visaria, a world with one of the worst reputations in the Commonwealth, to see if humankind is worth saving.  Much of what he finds there is expected, but a lot is not...and will cause him to come to some final decisions. 

I thought it would be interesting if, in looking for answers to everything else, Flinx encountered something that reminded him of...himself.