Status Updates From The Vindication of Man (Cou...

The duel turns weird -- or was it a duel at all? Were the formalities of calling out properly followed, or can Blackie consider it a continuation of an earlier scuffle? One thing is for certain -- the ship is hopelessly damaged. Montrose is preparing to go into hibernation, against some faint hope of rescue -- but there are only a few pages left, so not much room for a surprise rescue.

The verbal sparring match with the emissary of Praesepe, revelation of how diecous sexual reproduction is when considered across the galaxy and the universe. And then Montrose and Del Azarchel prepare to duel again, recalling the interrupted duel that ended the first volume.

The sheer power of the emissary -- Montrose and Del Azarchel must go into biosuspension and use artificial organs of perception and cognition, lest they be burned to ashes. Echoes of ancient astronaut theorists' interpretation of Mount Sinai as an encounter with super-advanced technologies that unprotected flesh cannot understand.

How alien mega-brains the size of star clusters think in a 'verse where the speed of light is a non-negotiable hard limit of the universe, with no get-arounds like hyperspace or warp drives. The parallels with a merely human bureaucracy and its limitations.

Awe-inspiring cosmic architecture -- a Dyson sphere like a giant cathedral of stained-glass panels, shepherded by planets that are themselves engineered. And a revelation -- Montrose's personality has been copied by the infamous Cahetel, and vomited forth here, to give the orders allowing Del Azarchel to do what Montrose objects to.

Midway through their voyage, Montrose and Del Azarchel are in a fight, because Blackie was using energy to transmit copies of his mind all over the place in some scheme. What is he up to now?

Ain's deal -- Torment and all its inhabitants and chattels will become servants of Ain's, to be egocast to distant worlds to argue Ain's case, while Montrose and Del Azarchel will continue to Praesepe for the fuel for the trip to M3. Montrose is not pleased, but there is no other deal.

Conversation with the mind of Ain reveals new wrinkles, and a tragic misunderstanding. None of the local super-brains even knew about the Monument -- and it lacked a vital bit of information. Conquest wasn't the primary intent -- had humanity repaid the arriving entities with cooperation, there would've been peaceable trade, but we were led to assume a War of the Worlds, and prepared defenses.

Have they been trapped into indenturing themselves, after Rania won humanity's freedom? And worse, have they handed over the entire population of Torment as serfs? And then a very mysterious conversation in the Monument notation -- that the entire universe is an artifact of the mysterious Ulteriors, and Rania's being stretches beyond the universe in a way theirs doesn't.

Way back in the first book, Montrose and Raina talked about ramming the enemy -- until Raina pointed out that they were dealing with an entire globular cluster that operated in unison. But now it looks like Montrose and Blackie are going to end up ramming the Hyades Cluster's "capital."

A solar sail of extraordinary size, and a daring plan to transform an entire world into a spaceship, to challenge the Hyades and demand recompense for the substitution of the False Rania for the real one. And then another vast jump in time, and Montrose is the POV character once again, on their way to confront powers ancient and more vast than the human Empyrian.

Further revelations on just how messed up everything is. Why did the Authority at M3 send a ringer back to Earth -- and what happened to the real Rania?

Rania's plan is revealed to have a dark side, of humanity reduced to slaves/pets of the higher intellects. The oaths of the Stabiles have become self-contradictory, such that keeping them is breaking them -- unless the plan has something in it that is too big for them to comprehend, and they must not second-guess it. In the balance is life or death for a world full of innocents who have no say in the matter.

The stakes -- if Vigil renders judgment and breaks the Table, all the people of Torment, guilty and innocent alike, even babes too young to act, will die. There will be no reprieve -- but if he fails to act, he will dishonor his lineage. So he must investigate -- and discovers that something very strange is going on. Something that has been kept secret -- to prevent panic? to protect the powerful? or something else?

Vigil receives the Sword, itself a splendid work of art. Hints of even more behind-the-scenes maneuvering, questions of how far the corruption went.

The members of the Table of Stability, their ranks and retinues. Everyone has a place and there can be no ambiguity -- or choice. The Speakers make me think of Asimov's Second Foundation, but the rigid, hierarchical society of fixed roles makes me think of the faufreluches system in the Dune 'verse. And then we're reminded again that the author has training in the law, although he left its practice behind.

Yet more evidence of the author's eye for the operatic in stage setting -- and the mention of the orichalcum makes me think of Vera Nazarian's The Atlantis Grail 'verse -- showing that both of them have a solid classical education.

A confrontation, with some daring maneuvers and some rules lawyering. One can tell that the author has training in the law.

Curiouser and curiouser. All kinds of anomalies in this fight. How many of these attackers are actually what they appear to be?

A festival, and assassins using the chaos of the festivities to attack Vigil. Interesting how his culture seems to draw a lot upon yogic practices, or at least the traditions of India, given how his mudras have names that read to me as Sanskrit.

Ceremonial gear clearly based upon the spacesuits of the crew of the Hermetic, back in Book One. And a rash oath made when Vigil thought his father's killer was human, which must be fulfilled now that he knows the killer was the world-mind, or he will lose face and rank. Quite a pickle, and it feels like a setup to a duel similar to the one in the previous volume.

Vigil's mother, and his father who has been slain, but not quite. She is both bride and widow, and will marry his shadow, but in the process be greatly reduced in rank and station in a very hierarchical world.

The reunion of Montrose and Raina, evoking a famous painting. A graceful fade to black as they kiss and prepare to enjoy their long-delayed wedding night. The story resumes some centuries later, on the distant world of Torment. Is Vigil yet another many-times-grand-nephew of Montrose, and is this scene preparing us for yet another confrontation between Montrose and Del Azarchel, like in the last volume?

Montrose awakens on the eve of Rania's return to find the Earth covered in some kind of diamond. The golden man and the mystery of the glory and attotechnology.

The grim story of the rest of the voyage, as the damage causes cascading system failures. Despair leads to suicides, and even after Raina brings a message of hope, age and illness whittle away her crew. The few survivors arrive at a mysterious megastructure -- the Authorities, with whom they cannot communicate. The message ends with her preparing for a desperate dive into the shield wall, hoping to pass through.

Rania's message to Montrose -- the story of their voyage. The attempts to produce new versions of her -- but her daughters are flawed, and slowly go mad. They discover the Monument is far more complex than they realized -- the external glyphs but an introduction and manual for secrets layered within -- and a set of tools that prove disastrous when used, destroying the Monument and killing everyone on it at the time.

There's been a duel in every volume of this series, but this one has certain elements of the absurd that make it almost comedic even as life and death are on the line. Montrose had divided himself into a multitude, from merely posthuman to far beyond human -- and two of them are at odds, and have decided to settle matters on the field of honor.