That is quite a ride.

At it’s core, it’s a fairly standard military sci story: the aliens attacked and now we’re going out to get them back.

And then you peel back a layer and you have the development of AI–all the more relevant with the recent developments in LLMs. Now, you don’t even need humanity to fight the war. But true to form, if you don’t need people to fight, it’s all the harder to convince those back home to care. (Read: $$$)

So now you have a minimal crew, sent off to either make sure the AI continues working… or possibly to make sure the people back home continue to care.

It’s a fascinating story, made all the more interesting by a rather complicated set of crewmates. PTSD, claustrophobic, autistic, and entirely too trusting. It’s quite a bunch. I really enjoyed all the interplay there, and some really human approaches to the problems they run into.

All the more fascinating as we get further on and you start dealing more directly with the aliens that they’re fighting all along.

This was honestly both a pro and con of the books (minor spoilers (IMO)):

• Pro: I appreciate that they *didn't* come to an understanding with the aliens. It makes them feel all the more alien, which I appreciate.

• Con: We don't actually get as much time with the ship, digging into the AI as it's own character as I'd like. That was just getting to a *really* interesting point, when the book goes off to deal with the aliens instead.

Overall, it’s a solid book. I think my biggest gripe is that there’s a bit ’too much’ leaving a few ideas a bit underbaked. Still, well worth a try.