Work kept me away, but I did manage to read three chapters, bringing to a close the first half of this novel, Part 1: The Very City Babylon. With what happens in Chapter 7 ("The Modern Regime," referring to and set in Nova Terra), that ends up quite an ominous title.

Before we get to that, however, Chapters 5 and 6 each bring in new developments, respectively, a trip to the planet of the selkies and an agreement with the octopods followed by a new planet Novakkad, which kinda feels like Asia, which has suddenly skyrocketed really quickly as a trading hub. Chapter 6 is especially notable because it gives us the De Tenebres (Esias and Lydia) encountering a society profoundly changed by the arrival of the octopods, now known as Multipliers.

Seeing it from their POV gave me chills that I didn't feel in the earlier chapters and the way the Esias and, later, Lydia flee (under the silent and urgent desperation of the krakens that pilot the traders' ships) to go back home to Nova Terra is quite panic-inducing, and the mention of Volkov in the end is quite chilling.