@jessamyn @puffer Anders is the one who confused me the most. There was just something so incongruous about his trauma response and how it informed his decision making. I mean, I think that’s by design to make him unsettling, but he made a pretty unconvincing hero at the end. Again, maybe the point.

But yes, they’re all unlikable. And so is the vision of humanity presented (which was a pretty naked commentary on the unreliability and vapid nature of social media). Again, maybe all of that is the point. The Mak Tek were actual monsters (I did kinda get chills when Martin revealed that they’d killed off two other species), but so was the version of humanity in this novel. They didn’t actually know the salamanders were going for all out genocide before the humans made their own genocidal plan.

Anyway, I’ll add Shroud to my hold list. I’ve been meaning to try Adrian Tchaikovsky out.

@jessamyn @puffer I feel like this author has a little trouble sticking the landing. I felt that way after Lexicon as well. He even congratulates himself in the Afterward that he learned to “fire the gun,” but he very distinctly did not fire the gun in question. He implied it maybe, but there’s the possibility that some other ship came in and fired their gun.

Apart from that, I felt pretty sure from the start that everything was going to go wrong. And that part was satisfying just from a pure storytelling point of view. I think it may have been better yet, though, if Beanfield didn’t survive, the ship did destroy her (and we saw the gun fire) and the ending is more about how they got the intel off the planet and that’s how they won.

But overall, I enjoyed the read. I’ll probably read more by the author eventually.

What did you think?

@jessamyn @puffer I’m bookmarking this comment, so I’ll get back to you

@jessamyn @puffer Heh, literally reading this right now. 77% finished. Read Lexicon immediately before this and thought I’d give the author another go.

I really appreciate one-and-done stories in this era of franchises and series