Here's some thoughts on things I've finished and felt like I wanted to capture for my future reference.
⭐: actively disliked this
⭐⭐: meh
⭐⭐⭐: enjoyable but not notable
⭐⭐⭐⭐: really great; would recommend
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: utterly brilliant!
Books read this year
19
Games played this year
14
📖 The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal
Finished: 3rd November 2024
This was a chunky book which managed to keep my attention throughout. It's action packed – at some points I felt a bit too action packed and relentlessly paced, but I really enjoy the author's writing and the character development. If I'd read this purely as part of the Lady Astronaut series, I would have really enjoyed it. As it was, I really enjoyed it, but there's a "but". A few months ago I read another book by the same author. Also set in space. Also a mystery. Also featuring a priviledged white woman who has personal trauma and disability. They're not the same, but there was enough overlap for it to stick in my mind and be somewhat distracting somehow. Still, I really enjoyed seeing some of the 'other' characters apart from Elma be brought to life from this series, the story was fun, and it all wrapped up pretty nicely.
🎮 Open Roads
Finished: 29th October 2024
This isn't a game game, it's a semi-interactive story. There's minimal conversation choices, all of which seem pretty superficial, and you can walk around and examine objects which sometimes spark dialogue prompts. Many of them don't though. I enjoyed the story, but I didn't enjoy the slightly jarring art style where sometimes the characters are animated and sometimes they're flat. The walk speed was again waaaaay too slow, and I wished that there was more consistency in objects - picking up everything just to see if it gave me a conversation prompt was tedious. However for a very short game those were tolerable, it's a cute game, but not really my thing.
🎮 Return to Grace
Finished: 22nd October 2024
I've read and watched enough "crash land on an abandoned planet and go into an empty building" sci-fi to never feel entirely at ease in a game like this, but the jump scares thankfully never came. This was a very straightforward story-based game that occasionally chucks you a light puzzle and either offers to solve it for you or tells you what to do. Its graphics and environments are actually pretty nice, and far better than the cover art implies. The choices you have to make aren't super meaningful (aside from the ending), but they do take you on slightly different paths, and definitely make you have to replay to get all of the conversations and achievements. Even as an achievement junkie it's not quite fun enough for me to want to do that, and would definitely have needed at least a fast walk option for me to seriously consider it. But I was pleasantly surprised, and it kept me occupied.
🎮 Frog Detective: the entire mystery
Finished: 20th October 2024
I'll be honest... this was the first thing in a long time that I couldn't face finishing. So this review is based on playing 2/3 of the 'games' within this collection. The premise was up my street: a detective who's a frog, solving mysteries, and a cute indie game. But in reality it felt like a school project or something – barely any gameplay, which basically consists of tedious dialogue that animates in even when you press the skip button, and walking around slowly on very linear one-step fetch quests. I know it's probably meant to be funny, or at the least quirky and endearing, but I just found it all extremely tedious. I feel a bit mean because I know this is not a high-budget game, and it feels like a stupid project between friends that found its way out into the world which is admirable, but... yeah. Not good.
📖 Translation State by Ann Leckie
Finished: 15th October 2024
I'd read and loved the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie, which, when I think back to what was going on at the time, is a terrifyingly long time ago now. I remember broad strokes about those books, but I'd very much like to re-read them now after having read this one. I find Leckie's writing style very easy to read, the characters are easy to get on board with, and I really enjoyed finding out a bit more about some of the races/factions that were less well detailed in the previous books. I felt there was a bit too much heavy-handed, almost teenage angst when it came to two primary characters, *and another gripe was the far-too-murderbot-esque use of a TV show as a plot device. But overall it was forgivable and this was a nice addition to the context of the universe.
*this is very much forgiven because of the quote I found here about it being a direct homage.
🎮 Botany Manor
Finished: 14th October 2024
This was a very quick, unchallenging, but enjoyable game. Feminism, plants, and puzzles.
🎮 Mineko's night market
Finished: 4th October 2024
Cute, grindy, buggy. This was a cosy game that was a bit too cosy and slow. Particularly at the end when you're trying to finish quests and you're having to skip entire weeks to get to the night market in the hope that a certain item will be randomly generated that day, it got very tedious. Money lost all necessity quite far from the end of all quests, and in general the pacing was just very off. It was pretty and I liked the cuteness and cats, but the ending also felt a bit janky. Not something I'd rush to recommend or play again.
📖 The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey
Finished: 28th September 2024
Thinking back over the plot of this book, it was pretty... ok very...bleak! There's a lot of difficult topics, the sometimes unexpected death of quite a lot of characters (they're at it again!), a character with mental health challenges, violence, living as prisoners and all that comes with that... and that's without basically losing an entire planet. But as with The Expanse, there's an ensemble cast who all find solace in each other, and who you grow to know more about as the book goes on. Similarly to the Expanse, it jumps from the perspective of different characters, so you get a nice bit of variety in the stories. There's a load of action, the worldbuilding is great, and there's clearly enough interesting plotlines to keep us readers busy in future.
I flew through this hefty book, and really enjoyed it all. My main issue was it was a hardback (I bloody hate hardbacks), but will definitely look forward to more. I just hope I don't forget all of the nuances in between now and whenever the next one will be out.
📖 The Night Masquerade (Binti #3) by Nnedi Okorafor
Finished: 16th September 2024
This one really kicked up a notch, and was pretty action packed. It had some of the same clunkiness as before, but overall felt better paced and was a pretty satisfying ending, mostly tying up the threads. I liked the way the story was told with The Root, with the way that Binti came to terms with her new identity(ies), and by the end of all of this she was a character I could really get behind.
I did however struggle a bit with a score for this, because whilst I really enjoyed it, I also didn't feel like it was an absolute classic. It'll probably fade away over time from my brain. So I've gone for 4, but really it was more 3.75 when compared to the previous book.
🎮 Far Cry 6
Finished: 9th September 2024
I'd never played a Far Cry game before, and I'm not quite sure what posessed me to pick up this one because I knew so little about it all that I had to check whether the story was a continuation of previous games (gladly it isn't). I also kept referring to it as "Just Cause" for ages (also games I've never really played).
Despite that rather rocky start, as soon as I got a crocodile as my buddy I was sold. The story in particular was actually meaningful and pretty well done, and the characters were interesting. I liked some of the little touches, like my Dani singing along to songs that come on the radio in vehicles. Speaking of vehicles though, they suck. I've possibly never seen a worse rendered horseriding animation, and I tried to avoid cars and tanks at all costs, which is a shame. The amigos though were a lot of fun.
I ran out of steam after finishing the main story, especially as it transpired that the insurgencies would mean that I had to keep clearing out bases, which really compromised fast travel. I did a couple of runs of the Special Operations, but these are clearly a lot more fun and feasible with a friend... which I do not have 🥲. But all in all very enjoyable.
📖 Matrescence by Lucy Jones
Finished: 26th August 2024
This is a book that I feel compelled to talk to people about. I've made three recommendations about it already, and have been tempted to buy some copies and leave it in places where people who it could resonate with may find it. I came across it through Bec, who wrote this incredibly powerful review. I'd been procrastinating on starting a new book, it sounded like it would resonate, and so I picked it up. And despite it being non-fiction, I was hooked.
This is an unashamedly opinionated, feminist book, which whilst it goes out of its ways to be inclusive, is firmly rooted in the author's experiences. Except those experiences resonate SO much with me, and seemingly with tons of other people. It put into words things I'd felt, and helped me to see someone else sharing the same things.
The author comes from a background of nature, and some of her writing is a bit too flowery for me. But it's also beautiful, impactful, and articulate.
Absolutely recommended for anyone in the parenting space, or generally for anyone who wants to understand better what people going through that journey are experiencing.
📖 The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal
Finished: 24th July 2024
I really enjoyed the first two Lady Astronaut series by the author, and found them very easy reading so bought this for a long transatlantic flight to the US West coast as a light read. I spent most of my time on the plane with this, and finished it off in some jetlagged moments after arriving. Like her previous books, my main criticism was the sheer cringe of the romantic writing. Sadly this is set around a couple on honeymoon, so there's a fair amount of it. That aside though, I found myself liking it more and more as I went along. Whilst it didn't connect with me in the same way as her previous books, I thought the fluffiness of the space cruise ship, the fun of the murder mystery, plus the important topic of PTSD and the main character's personal journey were all great. Not a classic, but incredibly enjoyable nonetheless.
📖 Home (Binti #2) by Nnedi Okorafor
Finished: 18th July 2024
I could remember the broad brush strokes of the first book, but had to read some summaries to remember most details as it'd been ages (Dec 22) when I read the first one. As before, I really liked the character and the world, and it's a story with heart. However I didn't think the story was very strong. I'm actually writing this late, in August, and I'm already struggling to remember bits. There was also some clunkiness in the writing, notably in the family reunion party. Despite that, again, I'm keen to read the end of the trilogy and will try to pick it up before too much time passes.
📖 Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill
Finished: 13th July 2024
A 'work book', this tells the story of Clearview AI and facial recognition technology, and in my head is called "All Your Face Are Belong To Us" (but I'm not the only one – warning, Twitter link 🥴).
It was an interesting tale, as well as giving some great insight into the technicalities of how the field has grown up, but in a very accessible way. That said, it took me ages to finish, again suffering from non-fictionitis and not being driven to keep going. And it also felt a bit formulaic at times, often starting chapters with introducing the new main character, giving an (often negatively physically portrayed) description of them, before diving into their role.
🎮 Rollerdrome
Finished: 7th July 2024
I started this on a bit of a whim because it'd been in my queue, and it didn't grab me. I played a couple of rounds and then went out to do some gardening. It was one of those games that needed a bit of finesse with specific combos, and I wasn't very good at it. It could have gone either way after that, but I decided to play another couple of rounds, and I got a bit better. And... oh... it's one of those games that you actually have to practice and have some skill with rather than button mashing and just wading in with guns eh?!
Once I got my head round this alien concept, I found myself noticably improving, which was... shock horror... satisfying. At points I turned on some of the accessibility settings, but then was later able to complete the levels without them as I got better.
I finished it fairly quickly in the end, and initially started going back and ticking off challenges and achievements, but then after a certain point it lost the appeal. There's a tiny bit of story wodged in around the game, but ultimately it did get just a bit too repetitive to be 100%able for me. But fun enough while it lasted.
🎮 Dordogne
Finished: 24th June 2024
Cute, pretty, gentle gaming, watercolours, slightly clunky controls, and a backstory/mystery that doesn't hold much weight. A nice enough little filler game, but I couldn't be bothered to go back and play through levels to pick up all the collectibles and achievement hunt, as it was just a bit too slow for me.
📖 Apex by Ramez Naam
Finished: 18th June 2024
A fitting end to the Nexus trilogy, this one picked up after I was less connected to the second. The ensemble cast is still fairly big, but you're much more invested in everyone at this point, and things keep moving forward at every stage. The underlying political tensions are obviously very familiar, but even more so in an election year. Maybe I was just used to the author's style at this point, but looking back this book also feels a lot less clunky in places than the first one did. It all wraps up satisfyingly, and with a nice epilogue to boot.
🎮 High on Life
Finished: 3rd June 2024
I like silly shooty games. Borderlands, Psychonauts... but this isn't another. Very quickly this game established itself as just too far over the line of "teenage boy" for me. Where Borderlands has loot coming out of toilets, sure, it also has plot depth and real heart. This game had dialogue at a level of "Why am I called Old Wet Grundy? Well, my name's Grundy and I like to piss myself. I'm doing it right now!". The endless stream of "sex, wee wee, poo poo, hur hur", attempts at being shocking through things like joking about child murder, and then just frankly very weak, tedious, unskippable dialogue turned me off. But speaking of turning off, you can switch off some of the bants. And then you're just left with a lazy shooter. The lack of a map is horrible and the environments are unmemorable so locations make no sense. The level select is clunky. The inconsistent environment where you suddenly hit invisible walls. The lack of progress trackers on tedious incremental tasks. In short, don't recommend.
📖 Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
Finished: 23rd May 2024
This was a birthday present bought for me because apparently it would be up my street, and so once again I went into a book knowing absolutely nothing beyond the blurb. This one is "A thrillingly told queer space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find, and who you must become when every choice is stripped from you", and yes, it was indeed very much up my street. There's some interesting character arcs for basically almost everyone, the core cultural setting has layers and depth, and the human/alien dynamics were also nicely thought through. I really enjoyed the way that Emily wrote it, and would definitely be keen to read more from her in the future.
📖 System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) by Martha Wells
Finished: 7th May 2024
Wah. I was so looking forward to coming back into Murderbot world – something that I've truly loved experiencing – but this was just a bit of a let down. It was enjoyable enough, a short and easy read, and I still very much love Murderbot and ART and the world. But. Hmm.
The first and biggest issue was that this isn't a 'new' story, it takes over directly from the end of the current-day storyline and is unapologetic and actually quite unhelpful with that. And what I mean by that is that the latest of the timeline was occurring in Murderbot 5, Network Effect, which was originally published in 2020 but which I read in January 2022. After that book-wise was Murderbot 6, Fugitive Telemetry, published April 2021 (I finished it 8 days after Network Effect), but in this the plot jumps back in time to before the events of book 5. So when it's come to this latest one, my memory was years out of date, and I hadn't even read the books when they were first published. I read a synopsis, I could remember the main plot points, but honestly I was so fuzzy on who everyone was, why I should care about them, what their characteristics were etc, plus all the nuances of how events had played out any Murderbot was so traumatised. This book doesn't explain anything really, and it's written as if you're picking it up immediately on the back of book 5 and will understand it all in that context. So for me that introduced a real gap in connection, but I'm curious to know if I'd feel differently after re-reading 5 (which I utterly loved).
That said, I don't think the story was very strong in this book generally. Murderbot is learning to deal with their mental health and isn't in a great place for various reasons, which was an interesting development. But the story about the colony just lacked much depth or interest for me outside of AdaCol2, and possibly this would have been better as the first half of another longer book. I still love you, Murderbot, but this wasn't my favourite.
📖 Crux by Ramez Naam
Finished: 22nd April 2024
It took me absolutely ages to get through this one. It's a fairly chunky book at 624 pages, but for some reason I didn't find it quite as captivating as the last one. It's more of the same action action action, but the cast expands out even more and there were several storylines to follow, which meant that you spend a lot of time on things happening in parallel rather than everything moving forward. It wasn't a slog to read, but it did get a bit samey. I'll finish the trilogy for sure, but I'm not desperate to do so as my next read.
🎮 Goat Simulator 3
Finished: 20th April 2024
I downloaded this on a total whim after finishing my last game and wanting something with low commitment to pass a lunch break during a draining period at work. I remembered playing Goat Simulator, without actually remembering much about it. From my profile history it looks like I played it in 2016 and got some achievements but clearly gave up at some point, which is what I was expecting from this one. But you know what? I actually thought this was great!
In contrast to Gotham Knights, where the collectibles were just not fun at all, this is a really well designed game. Janky as hell, but embraces that wholeheartedly, but really well designed. It's just fun. I used some guides to mop up some bits towards the end that I couldn't find on my own, but I spent so much time just exploring and playing around to see what I could make happen. I loved the secrets, and the "huh, that would be fun/silly to do" mentality leading to triggering stupid and satisfying events. The map's big, but not too big, and was easy to get around with fast travel / wings and rocket boots or the helmet. The collectables are pretty easy to see from afar, and make a helpful noise when close. Maybe it says something about me and my sense of humour, but I feel like I was on completely the same wavelength as this game, and it perfectly hit the brief for what I was after.
🎮 Chants of Sennar
Finished: 3rd April 2024
I really, really liked this game. I first came across it on my company's videogames Slack channel as a recommendation, but subsequently saw it on Sophie's list of favourites and I trust her judgement a lot. All I really knew about it coming in was that it needed you to decipher language, and I was pleasantly surprised by the pacing, the difficulty, the puzzles and generally working out what different things were needed. The levels feel big and confusing, but once you can read a bit there are signs and other pointers that help you get around. This game really spoke to my inner language learner, and I loved realising the differences in sentence structure and constructs like different approaches to pluralisation and negatives. Loved it, and would happily recommend and play it again one day.
📖 The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Finished: 31st March 2024
I bought this as a holiday read primarily because I'd taken Redshirts by the same author on my last long haul flight, which turned out to be the perfect level of brain fluff that I needed. This was exactly the same. In the end notes the author describes the book as a "pop song" and that fits perfectly.
It's a very easy read, although at times it did grate on me a bit that every single character has exactly the same, wise-cracking, sarcastic banter as everyone else in the book. It leaves the cast feeling very one dimensional and interchangeable for the most part, with zero emotional investment. But when you're on a 15 hour flight with a toddler squidged in next to you, that's sometimes what you need.
🎮 Gotham Knights
Finished: 13th March 2024
This was a game that became less fun as it went on. It felt repetitive, clunky in lots of ways, and didn't have any of the fluidity of the combat of the original games. The bonus challenges in particular left me so cold, having to adapt a fighting style to whatever the requests were rather than what suited my character or the situation. Plot-wise I'd read Court of Owls lines and enjoyed them, but this somehow missed the mark. And somehow, one of my favourite things normally – collectible hunting – was just really tedious and not fun? That said, I still sunk (way too much) time into it, and actually found myself more drawn to the (still extremely repetitive and grindy) hoarde mode after a while once I figured out you could match with people. Not one I'd recommend, but still a passable time sink.
📖 Dust by Hugh Howey
Finished: 12th March 2024
All in all this is a pretty satisfying conclusion to the trilogy and wraps things up pretty nicely. There's much more of the original gang here, and for me was a nicer balance between the S1 crew and the others. A lot of crappy stuff happens, it's not all happy happy (which wouldn't have fit the series anyway), but it's very well paced and again a very enjoyable read.
I'm so, so glad that these books held up to my memories, and thoroughly enjoyed the re-read. Definitely one of my favourite series ever, and I look forward to another reading at some point.
📖 Shift by Hugh Howey
Finished: 28th February 2024
As with Wool, I vividly remember exactly where I was when I originally read this. I remember how jarring but also exciting it was to learn more about the "why" of it all – what had led up to the silos, how they fit in, and a bit about the tech behind it all. Outside of that, I only remembered fragments throughout my re-read this time.
I really enjoyed having more in the Wool universe and continuing the story (which is still great), but a combination of much less of Jules and her gang coupled by some quite unlikeable characters in the from the historical elements made me generally less invested in their stories. But still a great read and a very enjoyable addition, just not up there with the first.
📖 Wool by Hugh Howey
Finished: 14th February 2024
It was with some trepidation that I finally stopped putting off watching the Silo TV series. I was curious about the adaptation, but my hesitation went beyond my usual nit picking of whether people did a good job bringing it to life. I have such vivid, important, and personal memories of my first read of Wool, even though it was 10 (ten!) years ago, and the book had stuck with me ever since as a bit of a symbol. On starting to watch the TV series (which is ok so far, but seems to be deviating on several fronts) I had an overwhelming urge to read the book again, I think to make sure that I reinforced my original thoughts and feelings to stop them getting overwritten by TV visuals.
I absolutely flew though the book over just a few days, helped by a horrible cold and time off work. I was surprised at the balance of how I'd remembered so much, but forgotten enough of the nuances that it felt like an exciting read all over again. Some parts of what I now realise fall into the next book were mixed up in my memories, and I really enjoyed reliving it all and detangling the story back to its pure form. And it's just such a great story. I remember my genuine shock of the book starting out detailing the life of a key character, and then taking a turn I really didn't expect. The pacing, the way the mysteries slowly get unravelled, the action, the main character, the way the descriptions of the environment made it all so alive in my head for so long. I love this book, and I'm glad that the re-read didn't lessen any of my experiences.
📖 Nexus by Ramez Naam
Finished: 11th February 2024
This was a recommendation from a colleague, and I found it a very enjoyable read. It's action, action, action, and whilst some of it is written in a very masculine and unsubtle way (there's several instances of variations on "her nipples were hard through her wet top/getting out of the shower; it was the most erotic thing Kade had ever seen"), it kind of works in a very popcorny movie way. The characters are a bit cliched but actually memorable, even some of the smaller roles, and the science and concept are quite interesting in themselves. I've switched over to another series because I was ill and that was already in the house, but I'm keen to read the rest of the trilogy. One warning: there's various references to and depictions of sexual abuse, and also graphic violence.
📖 Kill it with fire by Marianne Bellotti
Finished: 30th January 2024
I had the pleasure of meeting the author when I spoke at an event with her waaay back in 2013, and I've had this book on my reading list for ages. I always struggle a bit with reading "work books" because quite frankly I'd rather be reading about spaceships, but this was actually a really good read. Plenty of very practical advice and examples, and a blunt but honest way of writing that I appreciated for not over romanticising the topic. I can see myself going back to this as a reference, and also pointing others in its direction too.
🎮 Gris
Finished: 27th January 2024
I picked this up after flicking through my play later queue one lunchtime, looking for something fairly light that I could sink 20 minutes into without getting too invested. To be honest, I chose this over other things mostly because the artwork looked nice. On starting, this is one of those games that explains nothing. I was wandering around, not sure what I would be encountering or what my goals were, and coming across things that I could collect without having any idea what they were. The first couple of times I found what I later grew to understand was a colletible, I actually thought I was maybe triggering save points or something. Other things I came across gave lots of satisfying "ohhh" moments when I realised how it all works. With other similar games that level of obscurity has sometimes been a bit much, and I've needed to look up what things were for, because it passed the point of feeling like I should have worked it out or been given some context. But Gris is paced perfectly in that regard. I was quite content to just go with it, not getting annoyed when I got locked out of areas by being thrown into cutscenes, because when everything's a mystery and you're genuinely picking a random direction to walk in to see what happens, it feels way more acceptable than in, say, my Expanse review.
After picking it for the artwork, the visuals of the game itself did not disappoint. It's stunning. It's genuinely one of the most beautiful things I've played, and there were some wonderful 'surprise and delight' moments of the design that genuinely did delight me. This is a game about grief, and it's emotionally heavy without being difficult, and that carries through into the gameplay and puzzles. In two instances I thought "gah, I hate chase sequences", but you just can't die in this game and it's (mostly..) inconsequntial as to how much you engage. Gris is described as "a serene and evocative experience, free of danger, frustration or death" and I found that to be the case. My one, one criticism, which I considered knocking .5 marks off for, was unskippable cutscenes. They only came into play when I was redoing segments (bonus points for being able to jump to parts of levels) for achievements though, and actually it was only the pre-eel cut scene that I had to see a couple of times... and since they're lovely I actually didn't really mind.
Just a wonderful game, and one I'm very glad I stumbled across.
🎮 The Expanse: A Telltale Series
Finished: 20th January 2024
I have a long history of being pretty opinionated on Telltale games, yet have only actually played a few of them. I think I dabbled with the Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, and Game of Thrones series, without making any progress because of my frustrations with the mechanics, before eventually managing to complete the Borderlands series. To my relief, things have got (mostly!) a lot better on some of the elements that I previously took issue with. I enjoyed the stories in this release, both Drummer's and the short little Avasarala scenario, which was probably helped by them being two of my favourite characters. I also enjoyed the environment design and that there were some elements of puzzles, but was most pleasantly surprised to see that I could a. invert the Y axis (dealbreaker, couldn't in some previous games of theirs), b. tweak accessibility settings for the dialogue and quick time events.
However, I wasn't surprised that there were still frustrations. I'd turned off the time limit for dialogue, but yet any dialogue that used a call mechanism didn't respect that. From the very first mission there were two primary objectives in the menu, but only one showed up on the hud. On doing one, it locked out the other, and I missed a chunk of exploration. Similarly, I tried exploring on the first level but ignoring the marker and trying to fly in a different area still triggered a cutscene, which I really wasn't expecting. And that's my issue. Despite the many, many iterations, these games still feel inconsistent and unclear. Whether it's being asked to collect reaction mass, but having no idea how many there are and if picking up one will lock me out, through to the ambiguous "X will remember that" with no idea whether they took my seemingly neutral dialogue positively or negatively, I feel like this stuff should really have been solved by now. But hey, it was all pleasant enough, and I'll probably be back with similar views when I inevitably play another of the games in 5 more years or so.
📖 Plutoshine by Lucy Kissick
Finished: 11th January 2024
Another book inherited from my husband's ADHD-bought-but-not-read pile so I didn't know anything about it in advance, but it was a solid read to kick off the year. Pluto immediately became my favourite planet (I believe) when it was downgraded (gotta support the underdog), and this book did feel like a bit of a love letter to it.
Story-wise there were layers of different plot angles going on, and actually even the bit-part characters had enough depth. I really enjoyed how both Lucian and Nou were written. I also liked the imagery and descriptions of the Plutonian landscape, and how it would potentially change with terraforming. The book isn't a classic, and I don't think it'll be super memorable for me, but nonetheless still a fun read.