User Profile

I absolutely adored this book. I realise that part of this is that it was a perfect little escape while I was stuck at home with covid, but I do also think it's really wonderful.

It has some similar strengths to the first in the series, in that it's mostly about the relationships between a few outcast characters that become a chosen family and just happen to be in space. But if anything I think it's better written (I guess Chambers getting into her stride with book 2), and benefits from being a more focussed story of a smaller number of characters. And has some weightier things to say about embodiment, the tension between fitting in and freedom, and loyalty & reciprocity.

I am excited about the rest of the series.

This quote from the Reverend Mother in the very first scene is... prescient.

And it's interesting as a re-read because I didn't remember the general backstory to the oddly low-tech elements of Dune being explicit. I guess when I read it the first time they weren't the parts that made an impression. Not sure how much that reflects how young I was or how long ago it was in terms of tech progression.

Useful manual. Fairly concise, but with enough information to still be helpful to people like me, who know the basic technical stuff pretty well but have plenty to learn about composition and material. Not much of it is actually specific to "travel", but then why would taking a picture of some other city be magically different from taking one of where I live?