Reviews

A) This was very much a book that i needed to read at this point in my life. Adequin Rake is really a fantastic character and I can only hope to write the character that I want to be like her half as well someday.
B) I didn't think this was going to be just as good and better in a lot of ways than the first book of the series. I am wary of recommending it without reserve to everyone because of the amount of technobabble, but that doesn't detract from the book at all.
I recently suggested it as a follow-on series after my friend finished the Murderbot books. I have to revise that only because this is so much darker and broader and grander in some ways than those books. I love both series but they are way more different than I was thinking when I compared them. Murderbot almost feels fluffy compared to this. Anyway.

Spoiler

Where The Winter People infuriated me with the inability of its characters to let go, the fact that these characters succeed in coming to grips with that is incredibly gratifying. Adequin being able to actually let someone go - which I don't think she or I or anyone else would say was an objectively, morally "right" decision - in order to save the people she had promised to save was really a refreshing occurence in a book, and in a genre where "leaving no one behind" and "never letting go" is usually extolled as the virtue. That's rarely realistic, and I think the fact that Adequin and Jackin had to actually grapple with the consequences of not being able to save everyone made this book much better. In a lesser written book, I would be frustrated that that particular plot thread was left somewhat dangling at the end. I think I would also be frustrated that Jackin, knowing what he does, thought it was actually ok to give himself up. However, due to his "history: that, admittedly, is only hinted at, I will say that his decision did not feel as rash to me as the same decision made by other characters in other stories might have. There also seem to be enough other protections in place for his knowledge but, I think I digress.