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What is going on? Who are all these people

What is going on? Who are all these people

A good change of pace. Better than 4, the villains are doing their job but I want more of the deeper cosmic mystery.

The calculated, amoral, paternalistic high tech company reads well. Cast change up feels fresh.

Ambition and megalomania are the consistent big-bads in the series. (Interesting that the hero is definitely a personality himself)

The new crew dynamics are timely and scenes with Holden and NewCrew are interesting and spice up a good but tired formula.

The scale of atrocity is so large here that it’s hard to maintain the “everyone is human” party line.

Still better than book 4.

The history was excellent. The humanist anti-skinner psychologists and their struggle to validate “experience” hits close to home as a designer of subjective experiences.

The highs are high and the lows are low. Paints an intriguing picture but doesn’t let the lenses get too rosy. Mixes pro-molecule research and stories with less flattering accounts and some straight rebuffs.

Excellent read, occasionally repetitive but it helps re-enforce the points. A little FAANG centric tho.

Ugh. Promise Thrawn and Vader... deliver a bunch of Padame and Anakin that nobody asked for.