zachari's reviews
364 reviews

this was a very troubling book

more melancholy then her prequel sisters Time and Ruin, Children of Memory is a haunting surreal trek across the nature of consciousness and the perils of existence in a cold, strange universe. 

the most expansive of the three books, introducing alien cultures, extratemporal quests, and xenotheology, while retaining a few of our favorite characters, yet progress being split across the story of first contact, the story of the familial and class and gender conflict on Plato, the story of errant Gods, the story of Apollo's development, of his children's theosophy, along with filling in key backstory elements for Mathias and philosophical reflections for Crochus, meant that none of the stories had room to stretch and explore and interact. the aliens felt not so much mysterious as rushed, their culture more exposition then exploration, the mysteries resolved too quickly, or even before they'd been introduced. if the series was going to expand onto so many fronts, it might have been better to put more of the groundwork into place in book 2, which has a much narrower scope. a book 2.5 which explored the initial setteling of Plato, and 3.5 to address the cultural ramifications of the three First Contacts, might have better framed the many moving pieces and given them the space to chart their courses. 

a truely harrowing dystopia

"spare...and quietly terrifying" is how the Wall Street Journal described The Palace Of Dreams. i certainly agree.

so this is by no means the worst work of political theory I've read but it's a pretty useless contribution to the discourse on syndicalism and i didn't like it. hey, at least it's short 

i liked the part about the workers' experimental factories

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