Cameron > Recent Status Updates

Once the POV changes start, the plot really picks up and I'm no longer as frustrated by Yilon. Looking forward to the end.

Yilon is a harder protagonist to like than Volle, the protagonist of the previous novels set in this universe. As a result, I find myself far more interested in catching up with Volle and his supporting cast after such a long time gap between this book and Pendant of Fortune. Hopefully, Yilon will grow on me as his character arc advances.

So, I'm somewhere around 2/3rds of the way through this massive book, and while I'm certainly intrigued enough to finish it out, the apparent stupidity of so many of these characters is really starting to irk me. The villain is a definite love-to-hate-him type, but I'm also not convinced that he could so easily do the things he's doing.

In most ways, I'm liking this more than the first book, but I still have some issues.

I'm not too impressed at this point. I don't think David's portrayals of most of the TNG characters is very true to the series and relies a bit too heavily on the cheesier aspects of the not-so-great TNG movies (namely, Insurrection). His original/adapted characters (the supposed stars of this sub-franchise) are fairly flat so flat so far.

I'm a lot more invested in the characters at this point than I was 300 pages ago. I wish there was more thought from the protagonist about what her presence in the past might do to the future.

I'm not much of a fan at this point, but the characterization is at least intriguing enough to keep me reading.

I'm enjoying the historical anecdotes that go with a lot of these "laws." I will say that reading this book is leading me to think differently about current political events.

Basically a primer on Machiavellian thinking. Interesting. Cynical, but with an air of truth. I'm put off that it represents manipulation of others as some kind of twisted virtue, but then, I see Greene's point on that front.

Getting a distinct and unfortunate anti-environmentalism message from this book.

Not sure how I feel about the direction the book's heading.