Wealhtheow’s Reviews > Translation State > Status Update

Frankly I'm with Ambassador Seimet in having little patience with Reet or his feelings when there's blood and gate physics at play.
I know it doesn't say anything good about me that my fave characters are mean Seimet and sardonic Sphene.

"Then you wouldn't have to kill people!" said Echemin.
"I am not actually averse to killing people," Sphene said smoothly, almost as though it had just said that it was not averse to an extra cake."It's only that some of my cousins have strong feelings about it, and I would prefer to avoid trouble if I can do so at an acceptably small cost to myself."
[Followed by talk @ whether AI ships could use biological mechs]

Meetings between various ambassadors are absolutely my favorite part of this, especially when it's meetings like an ancillary ship AI talking to a giant spider in a mech. Two alien perspectives at once!

It feels like this book is finally getting underway

The funny thing about having a name is that you begin to think of yourself as a solid thing that continues to exist, instead of just a stream of experiences. And things around you too, seem to become more solid and durable... Before I learned human language, I would have been able to talk about what happened next, but it would have come across very differently.