Reviews and Comments

I know that I enjoyed this when I read it in 2016, but other than a few generalities about some characters and the details of one scene, I have almost no memory of it. I do know I was eager to know what happened next. The next book was just released last year and I want to read it, but I think I need a reread of this one first.

4 Stars A good enough book. My main complaints are that the motivations of characters' actions at points that move the story along are somewhat questionable. There are many ideas here that make the book feel current and new, despite having been released in 1988.

While attending the Worldcon in Scotland I was made aware that having not read anything from Iain M. Banks's Culture series was unacceptable. I'm starting to remedy that.

Alex Easton is such a great character and I was very happy getting to read more about them. This book is a little less creepy and a lot more Easton than its predecessor.

Rereading before I read the sequel.

I'm still not really sure about this book. I should probably reread it since I think I went to fast and missed some things. It was definitely interesting, but it seemed like there were too many characters for such a short work. None of the characters or the world itself were given much depth. #SFFBookClub

I'm about 45% in and I'm thinking this may be a book where I feel I missed so much that as soon as I hit the end I'll just start over to grasp it all. #SFFBookClub

An alternative history where the Native American Cahokia Nation was not wiped out by disease from white explorers and settlers, and went on to thrive. It takes place in the 1920s and it's very noir-esque. While it is a detective story that does come together nicely, it is more of a character piece. There are so many well developed characters and the fleshing out of the Cahokia people overall is easily believable.

I've come to expect more from Tchaikovsky. This one let me down.

The books was extremely well written and it tells a great story, but there were a couple parts where the author just did some handwaving to move the story along. Each of these shattered my suspension of disbelief. I still recommend this and there is a lot of wonderful concepts here, but it's not quite up to the full 5 stars.

Interesting ideas here, but it doesn't pull it all together. Still worth a read.

I know several people who love this series, but it came off as dull and bland to me. I usually like found family stories, but I have to care for the characters first, which I never did in this book. I also couldn't suspend disbelief enough to accept the general premise.