This was lots of fun. The story is told in a four-star way, but it has so fucking many great concepts: Having a fuckton of software for your brain, and the implications of loyalty software, of cours. But mostly the idea that humans are unique in collapsing the wave functions of possibilities, and basically the implications of xenocide that come with it. Wow. And the implications of learning to suppress that reflex, and having human made quantum computing in the brain. ♥
This was a good short story. It drew me in, and kept me, and will stay with me for some time.
How is Lois McMaster Bujold not one of the first authors to be recommended to people starting scifi? Falling Free introduces the Quaddies (humans with arms instead of legs), as seen and told by an Engineer, capital E. It's awesome, and it's got everything you'd wish for: a new culture, social implications, lots and lots of economic and corporate implications (I see where Charlie got his Laundry File bureaucracy from), and the cultural implications aswell. Also, very sweet and cool characters all around, and funny af. Leo Graf, the protagonist, is just ♥
Culture short stories! Very different in length, topic, and quality, lots of good stuff in there. Chief among them the one from Sma about Earth, and the one about the plant creature/person using a humanoid for their "she loves me, she loves me not". And A Gift from the Culture was just hilarious.
Ancillary Sword was an exceedingly worthy successor to Ancillary Justice. We get a deeper look into the culture of the Radch and (most importantly) the characters we got to know in the first book. Understanding how all of them felt, especially Breq, even while they were navigating treachery, improper (!) annexations, war, and crisis, was a treat. This exploration of characters comes a bit at the cost of action and pace, but the slower pace is made up by the frequent and fast changes of scenery. The book is more linear than the first one, but at the same time the consistent multi-focus storytelling is a different (and great) challenge altogether.
Tremendous amounts of fun! We get all the things I hoped for: More cool grandpa, more cool Rose, more cool girlfriend, (also otherwise cool women, especially the Princess seems to rock), and more cultural juxtaposition. The evil guy within the Commonwealth isn't … openly evil? I'm not even sure which side of their story I beliefe yet. And then we get dropped a huge cliffhanger on us (Princess missing, Kurt about to visit the Commonwealth, Adam The First Man dead) that is straight up illegal in the EU. Good thing the UK is seceding I guess.
Well, this was great scifi. It was focussed on a not very likeable, but very real character, and a completely informationally connected world. I enjoyed that it focussed so much on where and how information flowed, and the implications of VR. Lots of fun!