![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
For the first half, this novel was a rollicking-fun ball of adventure-intrigue. A little predictable and on-the-nose, sure, but thoroughly fun with a lovable cast.
It suffers a bit from what a friend of mine called "the heist problem"—you need your cast to be clever enough that we're impressed by and pleased with them, but not so clever that it feels like the plot's been set up as a contrivance to demonstrate their cleverness. There are some confrontations early on that I like very much, but also feel... a bit contrived... but my badass faves DID get to be badass... so I'm torn!
It also suffers from the multiple-POV problem, where you just plain care more about some plot threads than others. In summary:
* Nine Hibiscus: hell yeah, give me badass lady starship captains doing war ALL DAY LONG
* Mahit: interesting enough; it's cool to see Lsel Station & chat with Yskandr
* Three Seagrass: her stuff ain't deep and doesn't really move the plot but.... it IS entertaining
* Eight Antidote: zzzz, don't care don't care don't care
Near the beginning, the switches between POVs were frequent enough, and each of the plot threads were interesting enough, that they served mostly to amp up the suspense and keep me turning pages.
Around the middle, though, I started getting annoyed (oh god another Eight Antidoe section just shoot me), and also I needed to sleep sometime, and I just wanted to know what the aliens' deal was, so I skim-read ahead to find out that deal...
...and then the ending made me TOO angry to fall asleep. Alas. I finished reading the book properly a few days later, and while I wasn't quite as furious with the ending in context, I didn't much like it either. (I think. I'm still chewing on it!)
( me chewing on it. ending spoilers; cw bitchy )
Overall I enjoyed it, but it's a more uneven, lumpy, weirdly-plotted novel than its predecessor—which means higher highs, but also lower lows.
It suffers a bit from what a friend of mine called "the heist problem"—you need your cast to be clever enough that we're impressed by and pleased with them, but not so clever that it feels like the plot's been set up as a contrivance to demonstrate their cleverness. There are some confrontations early on that I like very much, but also feel... a bit contrived... but my badass faves DID get to be badass... so I'm torn!
It also suffers from the multiple-POV problem, where you just plain care more about some plot threads than others. In summary:
* Nine Hibiscus: hell yeah, give me badass lady starship captains doing war ALL DAY LONG
* Mahit: interesting enough; it's cool to see Lsel Station & chat with Yskandr
* Three Seagrass: her stuff ain't deep and doesn't really move the plot but.... it IS entertaining
* Eight Antidote: zzzz, don't care don't care don't care
Near the beginning, the switches between POVs were frequent enough, and each of the plot threads were interesting enough, that they served mostly to amp up the suspense and keep me turning pages.
Around the middle, though, I started getting annoyed (oh god another Eight Antidoe section just shoot me), and also I needed to sleep sometime, and I just wanted to know what the aliens' deal was, so I skim-read ahead to find out that deal...
...and then the ending made me TOO angry to fall asleep. Alas. I finished reading the book properly a few days later, and while I wasn't quite as furious with the ending in context, I didn't much like it either. (I think. I'm still chewing on it!)
( me chewing on it. ending spoilers; cw bitchy )
Overall I enjoyed it, but it's a more uneven, lumpy, weirdly-plotted novel than its predecessor—which means higher highs, but also lower lows.
