Kathleen Ann Goonan (1952–2021)

Meh. The book is OK, but one thing I struggled with is that the science is butchered so badly. At some point we have one of the characters (in an infodump) exclaiming that "Solving this math problem is non-computational. Godel proved it so. No computer could possibly solve it! Not even our AI. Only a human can solve this!" In one paragraph, this betrays a misunderstanding of Godel's incompleteness theorem, of artificial intelligence, and of the nature of human intelligence. Sigh. I know I shouldn't get caught up in this, as the book's main theme lies in the characters and their interactions, not the pseudo-science underpinnings, but in a science fiction book, it's distracting. At one point during the infodump, our hero says "I don't understand." and the other character just responds with "maybe you will someday" and continues on. I felt a certain sympathy for our hero at that point...… (mere)

The first 60%: amazing and detailed worldbuilding with really original and fascinating ideas. No real story, to be honest, and the female MC is completely passive (in truth just a witness, never a real factor, always pushed around by others), but the sense of wonder more than makes for that. Loved it. The next 20%: endless and boring introspection and inner MC doubts, plus thick packets of infodump served exactly as infodump: the MC, and therefore the reader, simply receives episodes of explanations from the past. Still no story, too many unintersting and unidimensional SC, and too much jazz references, unfortunately (I love blues but really, really hate jazz)... At 80% i couldn't cope with the slugging boredom anymore and gave up. A hugely wasted opportunity of an amazing scifi world...… (mere)