Shards of Earth

I just devoured this one for a refresher before starting the next two books in the trilogy. Really like AT's world building and how his prose really paints me a picture that looks just like 70's sci-fi mate paintings and book covers.

and as always this book features invertebrates as a plot point like so many of his stories!

....and multi-party conflicts, world ending crisis, class and gender politics, revolutions, the occult and cults, and other standards of good sci-fi in my opinion.

The start of this book really dragged. I had to put in effort to keep all the people and terms and politics in order. At about pg 130-ish, I started to forget I was reading and could fall into the story itself.

I don't think this book has the same deeply worked characterization as Tchaikovsky's other works. This is much more plot-driven, and it took a lot of groundwork laid for the plot to pop off. But, when it did, it was good.

There were a few times when I was a little irritated at author-withholding that felt manipulative or inserted later to explain a small hole. I think those explanations should have been worked in much earlier to make them more seamless and not give the feel of manufactured tension.

Still really liked it, though, so I'll be getting the next one in the series.