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The ending--literally, the last half-page of the book--seems abrupt, barring the hilarity of a straightforward "Fuck you" from one character to another. It's complete, not a cliffhanger, but it just seems like the story ends just like that.

Normally, this would be a major problem with a novel, but it's actually a welcome bit of rest at this point, since the final three chapters of Dark Light are just ablaze with skirmish after skirmish. Near the end of Cosmonaut Keep, news reaches the space station of civil unrest on Earth, which seems distant and never really enough to give the reader the emotional stakes the characters are supposed to have. This time, Macleod shows clearly the escalation of such events at ground level, not just street battles but the simmering plots and counterplots running beneath them.

Character-wise, in Chapter 11, we see the radicalisation of a character who seemed previously naive and privileged; it's not a clean transformation but the combination of the new political awakening matched with shaken-but-still-intact social blinders makes L the most fascinating they have ever been. An uneasy alliance begins to fracture here, and I could/should have seen where it will lead were it not for a red herring thrown in the final chapter that I completely fell for (and felt really sad about because AA is such a loveable supporting character ever since Cosmonaut Keep).

Chapter 12 follows immediately from the defenestration that ends Chapter 11. Gregor and Elizabeth reappear, reunited with Salasso (who become the most important character of these three Mingulayans), but just as quickly disappear to fly back to Mingulay, never to be read about again in Dark Light, at least. I like these characters and did kinda miss them, but I also loved the other characters, so it wasn't really that big a loss. Chapter 12 ends in foreboding, a city on the brink of civil war. I could feel Matt's heart breaking, especially for the heathens he has grown fond of.

Chapter 13 is the big climax, and there's quite a bit of violence here. Nothing gratuitous, all necessary to the plot. If you like Matt, it's a great sequence of moments for him as he spends the day on the streets, leading an alliance that does finally succeed in fighting off a vastly superior force of the disgruntled. Reading about the latter, by the way, makes me feel that Macleod wasn't at all surprised with post-Trump US politics, a recent example of "a popular front in reverse, pulling in a coalition of the discontented and bigoted and scared."

All in all, a great novel. Certainly not a standalone like the Cosmonaut Keep could have been, given that ending, but it does tell a good story focused on one planet/city but with enough diversity to take in so many species. I can't wait to complete this trilogy with Engine City.

Read just two more chapters since the previous update but a lot sure happens in 67 pages! Chapter 7 is called Ancient Astronauts and reading what that title really means led me to whoop out loud and want to punch the air. The conflict I see between those who want to resist change by extending their (policing) powers and our heroes (?) ramps up here. MacLeod once more shows how well he writes the minutiae of trial and error work. However, the "how to get shit done" problem here is not like the ones in the final third of Cosmonaut Keep; in Dark Light, the obstacles are not just technical but bureaucratic and political. And speaking of the political, we see town-hall politics at work here and Gail also has a chance to critique elections, which is damn good too. Gail is crucial in this chapter and that requires her worldview to be expanded, which is a great moment that she earns by giving our heroes a way to get through with the work they need to accomplish. The solution is cooperation. Chapter 8 divides the work: Lydia follows Volkov going around doing agitprop (an activity she hates mostly because she feels threatened by working-class socialism but what breaks through her privilege is a folk song) while Matt and Gail work with the sky people, giving us a nice discussion of gender and what it means to be a man among the sky people. More importantly, for me, it shows that Macleod understands desire quite well. Contrary to what some reviewers have said--the attraction between characters in these books is not a distraction but a very important part of the characterisations.

A week went past when I made ZERO progress on the novel, but I went back to it a few days ago and went through 7 chapters, at last finishing the book (again).

All in all, an incredible (re)read. I think I understand it more now, and I can't wait to jump (becoming light) to the second novel Dark Light, which I haven't read at all.

Something Cosmonaut Keep reminded me is how reading difficulty and reading enjoyment can be totally distinct. Difficult books aren't necessarily good nor bad, and the link between the two must happen case by case.

Cosmonaut Keep is an example of a really good book that varies in its reading difficulty. By definition, I guess that makes it "hard."

The final three pairs of chapters is a good example of writing that alternates between an easygoing pace where whatever events are happening quietly but also a whole flurry of activity offscene (riots on Earth) and on- (betrayals and politicking on the space station).

The resolution, if one can call it that, seems a little abrupt, but that's also indicative I guess of a story that doesn't overstay its welcome.

In some ways, this novel reads the way the craft in the novel is constructed. Slowly at times, with some parts focused on minutiae (political, technical), but then all of a sudden, boom! boom! boom!

Six chapters read: 9 to 14.

Quote from Chapter 9, page 139 of the TOR mass market paperback: "...the qualities of intelligence and honesty were linked: with sufficient intelligence one could see the ramifying consequences of a lie, the sheer cost in mental processing-power of sustaining it, and draw back from it."

Chapter 9 uses the urgency of a romance to quicken the pace of the SF plot.i thinkit works; some reviewers I once came across don't. Chapter 11 takes us to a saur city via bamboo airship, enlarging the world by introducing the hilarious " manufacturing plant[s]" that give this chapter its title. Chapter 13 gives us a set piece that reveals more of the world but also develops fhe love story as a separate thing.

For the near-future stuff, we meeta new female character to play opposite Matt. It seems obvious where THAT is going, but you get delightful asides here like Camila saying how "Nobody believes in Communism anymore, not even the commies," to which Matt retorts that "yes they do" but they now call it "the sustainable society." A similar bit of politicking happens in chapter 12, pages 195-196, which argues that aliens mistrust humans because of the latter's growth mentality, which is also likened to spam. In other words, weshould not treat space expansionistically but as a sustainable steady-state society. Really good politucal argument here.Finally, Chapter 14 gives us a lot of activity and adds a new romantic subplot for Matt but seems pretty much just a way of showing that it won't be an instant process if we're going to follow a blueprint to produce alien tech.

Surprisingly read four chapters in a single day yesterday (03 January 2024)!

Given this novel's chapters, which alternate between characters/timeframes/plotlines, I've been deliberately updating my progress here with pairs of chapters. What hasn't been intentional is how I mostly comment on how tough the chapters are. This is because, especially with the prologue, it seems to me that a quality of MacLeod's writing here is how he doesn't hold your hand in terms of worldbuilding...

...until Chapter 5, which shares a title with the book. Here, the historical background of Cosmonaut Keep (the place, the chapter, the book) is presented to a new character named Lydia de Tenebre, who landed on the planet Mingulay from the ship that came in way back in chapter 1 ("Ship Coming In"). Because Gregor Cairns and Lydia de Tenebre are worlds apart (living on different planets separated by time dilation stuff), we get a lot of explanation on both sides. It's an infodump but framed into a conversation between two people becoming attracted to each other. Not perfectly smooth but certainly very welcome at this point. Chapter 7 ("The Great Work") does something similar, explaining what the Great Work is.

For the near-future chapters (6 and 8), we see movement of plot and character. Discoveries are made in 6 that put Matt Cairns (yes) on the move, so that we get a change of setting in 8, with this protagonist now in the US. Some background is given here, too, but not quite as clear and straightforward as in the future chapters. That seems to be the trend so far.

Maybe it's because the near-future settings are beginning to accelerate towards the future, while the future stuff is about settlement. That said, things are also moving in the future...