Monthly Archives: February 2018

Neogenesis – Chapter 19 part I

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Tinsori Light

In which Tocohl makes a status report.

I found the jump from where Tolly and Haz were at the end of the previous chapter to where they are when they show up in this one so jarring that I actually flicked back a few pages to make sure I hadn’t accidentally skipped a chapter. Maybe it would have been a short chapter, and amounted to “Everything went according to plan for once”, but it still feels to me like its absence leaves a perceptible gap. Even a sentence or two from Tolly or Haz about what they’d been doing since the end of last chapter would have helped. (Maybe we’ll still get that in an upcoming section, and I just haven’t got to it yet because I stopped to write this entry.)
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Neogenesis – Chapter 18 part II

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In which Tolly suggests a straightforward approach.

Tolly’s plan seems sensible and well-thought-out — as long as the universe obliges him to the extent of the outpost being occupied by the people he expects.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 18 part I

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Tarigan

In which Tolly and Haz clear the air.

Tolly seems to have accepted something he’s been fighting shy of for about a book and half. Things will hopefully go smoother when he’s not constantly trying to persuade Haz not to watch his back.

Haz seems to have accepted something she’s been struggling with, too, although perhaps it’s just that she’s become more comfortable talking about it. (Even then, that she finds in Tolly someone she’s comfortable talking about it with is promising.)

Neogenesis – Chapter 17

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Vivulonj Prosperu

In which the Uncle is not in a good mood.

I’m not sure the Lyre Institute would share Dulsey’s assessment that they paid a great cost. They lost seven agents, but the way the Institute’s directors think, it’s not as if agents are real people; spending their lives to obtain a benefit for the directors is what agents are for.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 16 part II

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In which Tolly Jones gets a new assignment.

I wonder if Tolly’s ever going to learn that Haz isn’t as easy to manipulate as he keeps thinking she is. (I wonder if he’s not letting himself learn it, because the thing he keeps failing to take into account is her connection to him, and processing that would mean thinking about the implications.)
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Neogenesis – Chapter 16 part I

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Admiral Bunter

In which Hazenthull is observant.

I was a bit harsh about the switching between storylines last time, and as it turns out unfairly so: this time, though I was expecting it to, the pull to continue didn’t cut off when the story switched. It could be that we’ve now reached the point where every storyline’s got going, so even when it switches away from a storyline where things are exciting, things are just as exciting in the storyline it’s switching to.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 15 part III

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In which matters proceed with unexpected swiftness.

We were discussing pacing in the comments a few posts ago, and I said that I have trouble judging it because I only read one chapter a day. This isn’t entirely true; although I usually do read one chapter and write one blog post a day, I sometimes get ahead of the schedule if the story is exciting enough to pull me forward. (The record is the end of Scout’s Progress and beginning of Mouse and Dragon, where I burned through at least a dozen chapters as quickly as I could write the blog posts between.) The reason I mention this is that there have been a couple of places in Neogenesis, including this chapter, where I’ve started to feel that pull forward, only for it to be cut off as the story switches to a different set of characters. Switching to a new storyline every time the current one gets exciting is a way to keep suspense, but it also means that each storyline has trouble building momentum.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 15 part II

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In which the light keeper shares the gift of his knowledge.

Last time, I mentioned two things an experienced Liaden Universe reader might know about the light keepers that someone coming to this novel cold wouldn’t, and already both have been brought out in the open. Which is fair enough, because they’re both important things to know.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 14

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Vivulonj Prosperu

In which a change of course is called for.

I don’t yet understand how the failure of the Catalinc Project could result in everything that is ascribed to it, but I note that it sounds very similar to the potential bad future Ren Zel has foreseen.
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