Reading Update

Finished The Dreaming Stars, the second book in Tim Pratt's Axiom trilogy.

Everything I liked about the first book is true of the second - punchily written space adventure with a interesting crew, charming f/f romance between the mains, cool aliens. This one takes a little longer to get to the main plot, but I didn't mind the more easygoing first half, since there were consequence from the previous book to handle and set up for this one. I liked the breathing room to see what everyone had spent their time doing, to see a bit of Callie's past and to let Elena experience more of the oddness of being a time refuge from the 21st century.

It had less awkward "Let Me Tell You About My Identity" bits than the first one too, thankfully. I think when it comes to gender identity/sexuality, the most naturally-written bit of the series remains the Liars' - squidlike aliens that often interact with humans - pick-as-they-will approach to pronouns. We find out in this book that Lantern picked "she" solely because it sounds nice to her. Gosh, I do love the Liars.

Cutting for spoilers...

( On the romance )

( plot and sci-fi shenanigans and secondary characters )

( a bullet point list of things I enjoyed )

Anyway, this book series has been super fun, can't wait to read the next one and also can't believe I'd have never heard of it if it weren't for a random comment on ffa comparing it with Starship Iris.