Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy Read for Migration by Julie E. Czerneda starting on April 8, 2025.


Happy Reading!

Wheee!

Series schedule:
1. Survival (Mar 8) [link]
2. Migration (Apr 8)
3. Regeneration (May 9) [link]

Availability: Audio are Audible Only

Started/continued this this morning at work, when I finished Ghostdrift...

Read 40% now... I technically read a few pages yesterday after work, before returning to Ghostdrift, as my first attempt at reading something a few hours after my Garden of Sanctuary book hangover...

ANYWAY... there's something about this series, and maybe this author (haven't read enough to be sure), but... I don't feel like I can predict what's going to happen at all... things keep happening that feel out of left field (view spoiler)[like that spy that keeps hinting at romance leaving, scant pages after showing up at her family vacation home...

Or the earthquake/tsunami upending the Salmon Station plot at the start... (hide spoiler)]

I'm starting this one today.

Finished just before work tonight… was so good… can’t wait to read book 3…

Curious to see you guys’ thoughts…

And where book 3 takes us…

So glad to hear the second book is also good! I'm excited, but will be late...

Whoo! Starting! Eye reading so it'll take me a few days.

Nyssa wrote: "I'm starting this one today."

This didn't happen, and I ended up starting it over the weekend.

I agree with you, TI, about the unexpected turns.

Is anyone else a little concerned that Mac keeps (view spoiler)[talking to Em out loud (hide spoiler)]?

Finished. It IS good. And, instintictivly, I was not shocked by the turn of the events, but damn.

My only wish now (view spoiler)[is for Nick to come back in one piece and solidify his relationship with Mac! (hide spoiler)]

The relationship stuff feels inevitable... right?... or is it just me?... otherwise it's a plot point that hasn't served much purpose to the series so far... just gotta deal with all the "work stuff" first :D

Finally picked up the pace on this one... I made the bad judgment call of reading the first chapter of two books last weekend... and got sucked into the other one. It only took me a couple days though, so I'm back here and really enjoying it.

Through Chapter 2 + Encounter and actually starting to like Mudge--(view spoiler)[I'm getting a little nostalgic with him showing up here at the start, seeing as how we started book 1 with him too. He and Mac have such a great rivalship going--like the rival who you have such a long history with that they're essentially friends...

And it doesn't hurt that even though they are always at loggerheads, their passion comes from the same place--love of nature.

It's also nice to get 'Sephe as more than a random secret agent. Emily stand-in-to-be?

Seeing the Dhryn on Migration... it hurts!! I imagine, like Brymn, that they don't want to be mass murderers... or at least some of them don't--most of them?--but they can't stop their biology... (hide spoiler)]

RAFO

Whoo! I got a RAFO card!

I’ve been tossing them like party favors today/yesterday…

LOL

Through Chapter 6 and Encounter. (view spoiler)[Love the new alien comedy duo. They make me think of traditional Japanese stand-up comedy called Manzai--its a duo comedy, often physically very different, and with very different comic personalities, playing off of each other. There's some good subtitled youtubes out there.

I'm also really liking the science aspect. How Mac is approaching the problem like she's going to science the shit out of it. While it seems like the other folks are looking at it as a military problem. If Mac can find the evolutionary drive that causes the Dhryn to change, maybe she can find the trigger to turn it off, too...

I like how a lot of little things which popped up in book 1 are popping up again in book 2--and maybe becoming more important. Like Mudge, and Sam.... I wonder if we'll find out that Sam died in a related thing as well... and I'm holding out hope that Mudge will show up right before Mac is whisked offworld. (hide spoiler)]

Through Chapter 11 and Encounter--I really love Czerneda's biology background shining through--(view spoiler)[especially in the descriptions of the different aliens, and how aware Mac's Scientist personality. Her awareness of the interconnectivity of everything. How bodily fluids or owl pellets etc never phase her. Her interactions with aliens--always thinking about cultural barriers and thinking about biological reasons--for physiology or actions. I love how she immediately sees in the Dhryn something similar to her salmon--where is their Sea? Or are they coming back upstream from their Sea, trying to find Home? Though migrations are not limited to salmon.

The Trisulians are something else!!! Symbiotes who literally bonk competitors over the head with their genitalia!! Ew!!

I'm finding Mudge very curious--he is very stubborn (like Mac), but also proving to be very loyal to a relationship which Mac never saw in that same strength. Is there more to him than meets the eye? Is he a red herring? I'd almost wonder if he is Nik in disguise--Nik seems to have a much more emotional connection to Mac than a small series of meetings should suggest--but that seems wayy too off base and would need a lot of explaining.

Excited to go to the Conclave. (hide spoiler)]

Through Chapter 15 and Encounter--(view spoiler)[Well, the Mudge/Nik non-theory easily shot down. Not that type of science book anyway. And a Dhryn sent as messenger to the very Conclave working on the Dhryn threat! Love it! Especially having to deal with a Dhryn so close-minded... a real challenge for Mac. Also reminds me a lot of Wheel of Time--how all the different cultures had trouble understanding that other peoples didn't have the same values. I'm so curious about Brymn now though! And I miss him.

I also liked seeing Mac face down the Archaeologists. Straight to the point. Nice to see a book that doesn't wallow in guilt that doesn't belong to them.

I also keep thinking--this all started before Brymn. Before the attack on Haven sent the Progenitor Ship on Migration. There were sites--not whole worlds I think, just sites--with the life stripped from them. Where is the chicken behind these eggs? Something else must have triggered all this. (hide spoiler)]

Nirkatze wrote: "Through Chapter 15 and Encounter..."



*X-Files music intensifies* :D

LOL Love it!

Finished this yesterday! (view spoiler)[I'm so glad it's finally out that the Dhrynn were manipulated by the Ro... and the prior disappearances fit into this context much better! And Emily is back as well... but what will this mean going forward?

I've been thinking about what Nyssa mentioned about Mac talking to Emily out loud all the time... and it made me think about grief... when my Dad died, I did the same thing... not believing but hoping that he'd be able to hear me, if ghosts or angels existed. And in a way, Emily, with the inter-dimensional aspects of the Ro, could have been listening... Though it made me wish we'd had more time with Emily... We never really got to see their friendship in action that much. Unlike with Brymn. So Emily's presence or absence doesn't hit nearly as much as Brymn's did.

I kinda feel the same way about Nick. I like Mudge more. Nick has spent, what? All of a week in Mac's presence, coming and going? If even that much? I really don't buy their romance outside of animal attraction and maybe respect by résumé. (hide spoiler)]