http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2022-09.html#nagata ( )

Quite unexpectedly -- in that the notification of it came relatively shortly before its publication compared to most other books -- the third book in decidedly-un-Asian-looking Linda Nagata's Inverted Frontier series came out in June of this year. I really liked the first two installments: far future, crazy physics, a rich setting.

Book three lives up to my experience of one and two. It adds a lot of exploration of personal identity and what constitutes human in a world were virtual subselves, called ghosts in the books, can be instantiated at will, but with altered personalities, and whose experiences will be integrated back into the 'real' (whatever that means!) you.

Most importantly for fans of the series, it advances the story in some interesting ways as well as develops the main characters further. Nagata also introduced a new character through which the some of those identity and humanity questions are explored, and who I think was my favorite of the book.

The prose was a bit rough in places. One notable bit of ugliness that stuck in my head as it was near the end: A shiver radiated across the still-expanding expanse of her mind. Expanding expanse? Really? Urgh. I mean, just off the top of my head, without looking at a thesaurus: “expanding vista” or “blossoming expanse.” I'm surprised none of the several reviewers and proofreaders mentioned in the acknowledgements said anything about this.

But, hey, not everyone can be a master prose stylist, of course, and it's equally obvious that being one isn't necessary to tell a good story. And the Inverted Frontier series is a good story.

The icing on the cake, though, is in Nagata's afterword. She's planning to write two more book in the series to wrap it up. Color me pleased as punch.
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