Maytera

The idea of a being like the tines, multiple members with one consciousness, was interesting to me, and I thought it was portrayed in a humanizing way. Hiveminds like that are often portrayed as strange or alien. I also enjoyed the stylistic choice of Usenet messages being used to convey news, that's very fun. The main characters, tines, human and otherwise, had an appreciable amount of depth for what could have just been a concept/setting-exploration story.

I felt that some of the back part of the book dragged and that the episodic nature of the OOB's descent contributed negatively to that, but there was never a point where I didn't want to see the end.