Katherine
This peek into the past of the Vorkosigan universe (Vorkosiverse?) was really interesting! I loved the ideas of “what happens when biological engineering becomes technologically obsolete” and “what could one man accomplish” combining to make such a crazy story. There were some moments that I went “okay now that’s too much” and thought that it felt like an early writer’s tendency to make everything go wrong that could possibly go wrong. I really liked the characters, and found myself absolutely LOVING some great malicious compliance with corporate rules towards the end of the book. There were some heavy topics that I wish could have been touched on a bit more, mostly around psychological manipulation (grooming) and censorship, but the book had a LOT going for it even without that. Overall, a super cool read with some surprising twists and solutions that were a lot of fun to see.
This peek into the past of the Vorkosigan universe (Vorkosiverse?) was really interesting! I loved the ideas of “what happens when biological engineering becomes technologically obsolete” and “what could one man accomplish” combining to make such a crazy story. There were some moments that I went “okay now that’s too much” and thought that it felt like an early writer’s tendency to make everything go wrong that could possibly go wrong. I really liked the characters, and found myself absolutely LOVING some great malicious compliance with corporate rules towards the end of the book. There were some heavy topics that I wish could have been touched on a bit more, mostly around psychological manipulation (grooming) and censorship, but the book had a LOT going for it even without that. Overall, a super cool read with some surprising twists and solutions that were a lot of fun to see.
