This is the spoiler post for Cyteen; 40,000 in Gehenna; Downbelow Station; and Regenesis. The non-spoiler post is here.
Because I’m talking about four different books, I’m going use clickable expandable tags instead of a read-more. You can also use these in the comments, like so:
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Cyteen
The characterization bits I referred to in the main post: it’s impossible to tell what’s up with Jordan with what we have here (does he have a genuine professional dispute with Ari I? is it just the tug-of-war over Justin? both?); and the key bits about Denis’s personality coming in so late in the book ends up being tell-not-show in a sub-optimal way.
My reread notes to myself include “Ari II is in fact also very creepy”—and that’s before I read Regenesis!
(Also I know life is a rich tapestry but I was not remotely so horny as a just-menstruating child, my god.)
Two more things, of vastly differing scale.
First: Worms in the tapes is the first-order fear when it comes to this kind of thing—see Mikhail Corain’s opening POV section—and yet the fact that Ari I has already done it, and not just to the Gehenna azi, seems almost undersold in the book!
Second: does Ari II get the equivalent of a mood ring for her birthday?
And Dr. Edwards’, then, which was a piece of gold plastic until you put your fingers on it or laid something like a pencil on it, and then it made the shadow in different colors according to how warm it was, and you could make designs with it that stayed a while.
40,000 in Gehenna (but also Cyteen, again)
I can’t tell whether we’re supposed to find the calibans’ sentience a surprise or not.
I was initially resistant to the idea that Ari I’s hidden imperative to the azi made any difference at all, because of how thoroughly Jin 458’s descendants do not listen to him, but a friend points out that the weirds seem to be wholly azi-descended. So I think this has to say more about my knee-jerk reflexes around parenting than anything else.
But I think that Gehenna does show that Ari’s wrong in a more fundamental way: Ari I put all this work into deep-sets—CIT deep-sets—because she thought that humanity needs to be united at that level, lest it diverge into lots of little groups that will be in constant conflict. Yet Gehenna diverges radically from galactic society and, in the tantalizing final section of 40,000, are back in that society with apparent benefits to all.
(I can’t believe it took me until now, thinking about how the onlooker calls the caliban a dragon, to wonder if these were also in response to Pern.)
Downbelow Station
For some reason, I have no idea why, I was immediately afraid that Elene was going to play an unpleasant structural role. So I cheered extra hard when she came in with the merchanter’s alliance. (The overall Quen-Konstantin-Talley situation was quite juicy and I hope Josh can come back sometime.)
…and I’m running out of steam and don’t have anything else to say about this right now.
Regenesis
It’s minor, but even with how self-absorbed Ari is, I find it hard to believe that she thinks her successor will need Giraud Nye that much.
Ari in her impenetrable tower, with everyone she cares about around her (nevermind asking them first)!!!
The reason I’m not sure that the narrative disapproves is that it goes easy on Union overall. All the clear horrors of this book are in the past (the treatment of azi soldiers) or mustache-twirling obvious bad guys (Defense). Meanwhile Ari I insisted that azi are not supposed to be a perpetual convenience … which they certainly are on Reseune … and Eversnow is explicitly pitched by Yanni as a reason to keep up the demand for azi, thereby maintaining Reseune’s hold on power … to which Ari II makes no objection.
Gah. Gah, I say.