In which Hazenthull gets the call.
Well, it’s about time.
I like the detail that when Hazenthull needs an alarm call guaranteed to get her up before she’s even awake, it’s not just any loud noise but specifically an Yxtrang ordering her out of bed.
And interesting that when she needs to identify herself, she identifies as Yxtrang as well as Korval. It might just be to warn her opponents of what she’s capable of, and for whatever confusion value might be gained by claiming both Korval and Yxtrang. (I thought for a moment it might be interpreted as a Korval ship that had been stolen by Yxtrang, but Yxtrang in that situation wouldn’t bother with the ship’s former ID, they’d just straight-up identify it as an Yxtrang ship.) But on the other hand, she’s always been the one out of Korval’s pet Yxtrang who went in thinking of it as a temporary situation and was least inclined to think of herself as a former Yxtrang.
(I wonder what the Institute makes of it. I wonder what Yxtrang Command would make of it if they came to hear of it.)
(I wonder how relations have been between the Institute and the Yxtrang. Have the Yxtrang ever raided an Institute planet? Does the Institute have any arrangements in place to avoid that eventuality?)
I felt there was too much waiting in this book. The pace felt slow at times.
I can’t really tell; the way I’ve locked myself into reading it makes it difficult to judge pace. It’s taken me a week to get from Haz arriving in Nostrilia Outspace to Haz attracting attention, but that’s because I’m only reading a little bit a day; if I were reading the novel properly I would have got through it much quicker and would probably feel differently about it.
(I’ve been pondering lately whether I chose the right way to cover the new novels; maybe what I should have done was read each one through once at normal pace and then go back over it one chapter at a time. But then I wouldn’t have been able to pad by making uninformed guesses about what was about to happen. Anyway, I feel like I’m stuck with this method now.)
Your method is unique and offers a singular perspective. It’s interesting to read your responses before you know how the plot is going to work out.
I didn’t feel that it dragged, but I remember thinking at about this point that there was a lot of stuff being set up that would be resolved in Fifth of five, and wondering what the denouement of Neogenesis was going to be.