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This is my favorite Murderbot novella. What stands out the most to me is the prickly but endearing not-friendship between ART and Murderbot. I also love seeing Murderbot taking on its first clients (by choice) and feeling just as invested in doing a good job in protecting them. My delight in this book is probably why I also like the novel Network Effect so much, as it feels like a thematic expansion of all the best bits of this book (plus ART).

I think it's also easy to read this book as such a queer and trans story (only metaphorically, as it would be horrified at this comparison). It really gets into how fraught physical change for the purpose of passing is; it's something that Murderbot feels it needs to do for safety as rogue SecUnit, even as it feels emotionally unsafe to do. And also it's Murderbot having to navigate this change with the (extremely pushy but supportive) help of ART.

This book also gets into some of Murderbot's traumatic history in its investigation of Ganaka Pit. On a reread, I think I was surprised at how little reaction this gets from Murderbot in the moment once it has unraveled a core mystery of its past. But, at the same time, trauma is unevenly distributed, Murderbot is not the best at feelings, and it certainly catches up later in conversation with ART and Tapan.

A fascinating historical fantasy that mashes together the characters from Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes. It retells J. M. Barrie's story of Peter Pan from the perspective of the mother, Mary Darling, and gives a modern interpretation to the tale involving slavery, the denigration of native people, the restricted lives of women in the Victorian era, and the rougher side of actually living in Neverland with a Boy that Never Grows Up.

It starts on the night Peter Pan takes her three children to Neverland, and Mary Darling is determined to go there and get her children back. Mary Darling is the niece of John Watson, so he and his companion Sherlock Holmes gets involved in the investigation into the children's kidnapping (as told to the rest of London).

In the first part of the story, we follow Mary Darling as she prepares for the journey, and Holmes' investigation into how the children were kidnapped. We learn more about the background of Mary Darling and the people she knows, and see the first 'collisions' between the magical world of Peter Pan and the logical world of Sherlock Holmes.

The second part of the story covers the separate journeys of Mary Darling, and Holmes and Watson, to where Neverland can be found. As it turns out, Mary made her own journey to Neverland with Peter when she was young, so she is not unprepared to face Peter to get her children back. Watson, meanwhile, has brief encounters with fairies and mermaids and is unsure how to explain such phenomenon to Holmes.

The final third part of the story would involve, of course, Captain Hook, who has a bad relationship with Peter (due to his hand) but who also knows Mary. They would all collide over the rescue of Mary's three children. But what could have been a violent encounter is defused by the timely arrival of the dog, Nana, who is also the children's nanny. As for Holmes, he is left wandering in a case where fairies are real can make people fly, but that can never be part of his logical deductions.

A tale with light touches of magic and a re-imagining of well known fictional characters, now told with modern sensibilities.

A fast, enjoyable read with a few gut punches hidden throughout. Not so much about the moon turning into cheese as how lots of different people react to the moon turning into cheese.

Some of the vignettes are funny, some are touching, and some stand out more than others. Some people only show up once and others come back repeatedly. The feuding cheese shops that have gotten a lot more attention since the change. The pop-science author whose book on fantastic takes on the moon came out at exactly the right time. The astronauts whose mission is scrapped take it better than the billionaire rocket mogul whose company is building their rockets and spacecraft.

The most impactful stories, though, are a set of vignettes around the 3/4 mark involving a long-divorced couple staring down mortality, and an extended chapter on a writer who has spent her entire adult life trying to get her first novel just right before shopping it around.

OK, there's one with a more literal impact, but you know what I mean.

(Cross-posted from my website.)