Avery

At a surface level Challenger is a history of the engineering issues faced by NASA up until the eponymous disaster. A little deeper, it ends up being more of a look into failures of project management when it comes to the space missions.

When it comes to the individuals involved, the book is almost universally positive in its depictions (with the possible exception of a few execs/politicians).

When it comes to the bigger picture though. Higginbotham describes a flawed system of government bureaucracy. Hours to get approval to remove a bolt and simultaneously failing to listen to a clear warning of danger.

Its no push for privatization though -- we also see a systemic ignoring and rationalization of a clear (admittedly more so in hindsight) problem. Sweeping life or death issues under the rug when they don't fit business objectives is hard to watch.

As someone in the software industry, we frequently joke about not being "real engineers". While I imagine that's still pretty accurate, compared to the rocket engineers working on the space shuttles, it was eerie to see some of the same patterns of engineering dysfunction. The promotion of a fluke error to the status of "longstanding bug", by virtue of the fact that nothing seemed to break catastrophically, gradually moving the line of what is acceptable risk. Treating designed systems as black boxes and inventing terms or concepts to explain away their idiosyncrasies.

Obviously no project management effort is going to be immune to failures, and NASA also made some pretty huge achievements along the way. Still, it seems like a good reminder to keep an eye out for these "Fifth Risk"-style dysfunctions, and remember that an organization filled with exceedingly competent and kind-hearted individuals has the potential to make bad decisions.

PS -- OK confession time -- I had to get halfway through this book before remembering that Challenger and Columbia were different shuttle (disaster)s. I didn't know much about either story going into this book, so thought it went long, I appreciated all the context. Also, I'll be lucky if I remember three names out of the hundred (more?) people talked about throughout the book.

Definitely preferred the first, though I probably won't abandon the series. Felt like not much happened and what did was somewhat convenient or meaningless.

I'm a fan of Travis Baldree's narration but the constant French(?) accent on this world was painful. I sure hope there's less of that going forward.

I came across this book and thought "oh, neat, I didn't know Ray Bradbury wrote mystery novels". I was wrong -- one way or another, everything he writes is a "Bradbury novel". Romantic, meandering, no complaints.

The book is much less dark than the synopsis made it seem. The reader is reminded a few times how much the protagonist is a dark and twisted hero, which seems.. really not to come through in his dialog and behavior?

That said, the friendly vibes don't bother me either.

I love the idea of grounding the cultivation/soul concepts within a very concrete (literal) structure. It makes the mental "work" and decisions they're making easy to visualize and provides a great framework to (again, literally) build upon.

Solid intro, interested to see where the series goes next.

I came across this book and thought "oh, neat, I didn't know Ray Bradbury wrote mystery novels". I was wrong -- one way or another, everything he writes is a "Bradbury novel". Romantic, meandering, no complaints.

> I felt detached, untethered.

This statement by the main character is also how I felt about most of this book. I don't think it was particularly bad, but for some reason, I found it hard to care about most of the plot beats. Maybe because it felt like the protagonist didn't either.

One explored concept is the potential impact of hardware backdoors and our reliance on a relatively brittle supply chain. To me, this mostly felt too real to be entertaining fiction, yet not explored deeply enough to be informative.

What I wasn't expecting is for this tech-y spy thriller to start giving "This Is How You Lose the Time War" vibes (to be fair, I didn't expect it from that book either). The writing style is less overtly poetic but somehow still had similar energy at times, hidden inside a more grounded narrative style. Maybe as if El-Mohtar's book was crossed with one of Kim Stanley Robinson's half-essay near-future sci-fi explorations (while thankfully staying closer to the first in verbosity).

The afterword by the author made me feel like even though this book might not have been the best fit for me, it might still be worth trying another.

This installment continues to ramp up the stakes satisfyingly, similar to the last book. It's pretty impressive how much mileage Stross is getting out of the general setting/premise while keeping each book feeling fresh.

I feel like either the constant re-explanations that frustrated me with the previous books have gotten less common (or I've learned to tune them out).

What's kinda neat about this one is that its political commentary moves beyond "civil service is clunky and inefficient" to "but it's probably better than the alternative", while remaining true to itself. Definitely some ideas in this one that can still be useful in a world without (mathematical) eldritch horrors.

Creative take on some fantasy tropes mixed with the series' typical computer science lovecraft math (which is my favorite thing).

I miss Bob, almost dropped the book at first but I'm glad I circled back a few months later.