I was glad to come back to this world. I enjoyed learning about Pax and Steveland and how the plant live on that planet worked. At the end of book two, Steveland sent seedlings to earth, as well as a Glassmaker, so I was looking forward to seeing that interaction. Instead, this book took a quite different turn, showing the aftermath of a global war (the Insurrection) that took place within the last few decades. Along the way, we learn about a robot uprising, wild robots who work to fulfill their original programming–possibly saving ourselves from ourselves. At the end of the book, in the last 20 pages or so, all the POV characters come back together and rejoin the main plot.
I found this book a lot less satisfying than the previous two. I think what made the first two books work so well for me was the world building, the interesting biology and the first contact aspects between the Rainbow Bamboo, the Corals, and Humans. The contrast between plant and animal life continues here, and for good purpose. Plants have to solve problems they face because they can’t move, while animals can avoid them (at least to some extent). This book focused almost half on the inter-Human conflicts between the various nation states on earth, and about half on the Rainbow Bamboo POV character named Levanter and their decision to reveal the intelligence of their species to Humans or not.
I was disappointed to not see the Glassmakers or Pax in this book, except for a few 55-year out of date messages from Steveland to their progeny. There was also no mention from the previous books about … and I’m forgetting the exact name of it … but in the 2nd book there was a focus on the human survival from a prior collapse and a woman who symbolically took the blame of it all, and one of the characters escaped to Pax to avoid her fate. Some loose threads didn’t get picked up.
The writing style of the book was more similar to the 2nd book than the first. The first felt like a collection of linked short stories (which made sense due to the long generational timescales involved) while the second took place over only about a year or so. This book also took place over a short period of time. The pacing was slow, the world building (this time of a future Earth rather than a different planet) was well done as I expected it to be. The book also felt short. Since I listened to the audio version of the first two in the series, I checked and this book is a little bit shorter than the other two, but not a lot.
I would read another book set in this world. Especially if it brought back the Glassmakers or the corals. Two very interesting species that could be developed into their own stories.
Be First to Comment