John Payton > Recent Status Updates

The faction wars carries a slightly different flavor than the previous books. Probably the shifting POV is affecting it too.

Okay, at least it ended well.

Still looking for a point to this.

Cindi likes this one, I'm not really enjoying it. The narrator is good. If it turns out there's not point to this book, or if Lelant doesn't get killed/exposed, I won't recommend this one at all.

Nearly every adult character, and a few of the child characters, are absolutely deplorable.

This book is Charlotte's Web.

I think that I've met all the characters? Maybe? Still setting things up. The octopus's ability to recognize fingerprints obviously ties in to Eric's fingerprints on the oars.

Does this count as science fiction? We open with the octopus narrating. I think it's science fiction.

Ouch, sound weapon!
The war sounds like most of our d&d campaigns.
They got Lulu! Lousy good-for-nothing stoats!

No! They got Sly!
No! They shot Lulu!
Dang, it's dangerous to be Scotch's friend.

I can just imagine how the Green Cities got started.
Liberals: "We should build self-sustaining, ecologically friendly cities where no one has to work!"
Conservatives: "Hell no!"
Liberals: "You can have genetically engineered slaves."
Conservatives: "I'm listening..."

Okay, so the seedy noir detective voice wouldn't work with Tchaikovsky's description of the science and all, but when he returns to the actual story, I still want to hear Bogey.
This seems like a dark revisioning of The Rats of N.I.M.H.

Sly - There's a Tumblr post which claims foxes are cat software running on dog hardware. Suspect that Tchaikovsky is aware of this.
"Squirrels are nuts" 😄
I have no beef with the reader's voice or his skills, but I kind of wish he'd chosen the noir detective style of narration.

Ghost commune!

Look, it's been several generations, it's time for the ghosts to just let it go. That apple orchard ain't coming back.

Beetle sex? Really?

Had a hard time convincing myself to continue this one.

* Mansplaining
* Axe murder!
* Ghost story ???
* Wait, gay attraction now?

What even is the point here?

Gary Hartmand -- Queen of Hearts.

Oh. My. God. This entire thing is a takeoff on Wonderland? We have an Alice, and now a Cheshire Cat.

I no longer believe that I would understand this story better had I read the first two books. Tchaikovsky is deliberately writing to confuse the reader.

Okay - I can get behind the oligarchs who can't get anything done because they can't work together. And that they were responsible for the degradation of Earth.

I kind of like the mantis shrimp.

And I think I could appreciate Alice. if only I could figure out her frickin' TIMELINE.

What's the timeline here? When is Alice buried on the planet, in relation to when she's on the ship? Is Katt the same as Kern? WTF is going on here? The shifting POV and unclear timeline is throwing me off.

Is the part with the terraformers a true prequel, or is it in the simulation?

Which character woke up underground? Aliice, or Cot?

Can the narrator do any other characters?

What's the point of this story?