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Finished At the Mountains of Madness

When I was first drawn to the Liaden stories I found the all the mannerisms and protcols of Liaden society an interesting bit of icing on the stories. Sadly, I think we could do a little less of it in this and the previous story. Seeing our Terran hero trying to learn all the complications of Liaden society is interesting but it slows things down a bit.

So the surprise hinted in the last book's cliffhanger is correct and the Streaker and it's harried crew from Startide Rising make an appearance right out at the start. Certainly happy to see Brin picking that storyline back up again and hopefully brought to happy conclusion.

Now that the potential antagonists have come out and started being a threat things have settled down. Most of the key players are sorted out now and the few that will probably be key players later are at least showing some relation to the main story line. It is getting good.

A quarter of the way in and I begin to despair that things are going to start making sense. There are far too many characters scattered between different places, engaged in seemingly unrelated activities. The story keeps jumping between them so quickly that it is proving hard to form any overall picture of what is happening.