This was definitely an interesting book. 

I really enjoyed the pervading sense of doom/mystery for the majority of the book, as well as the casual representation of both of ethnicity and non-binary characters. 

However, towards the end of the novel, as all of the meanings/mechanisms of the planet were revealed, my enjoyment definitely decreased. 

Throughout the book, Daghdev was constantly telling the reader how we’d never believe or even be able to comprehend the workings of the alien life, so I was expecting something truly remarkable. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Tchaikovsky was obviously trying to go for a mind-blowing and existential ending to the book, which fell flat for me because the actual workings of the planet are something I’ve read about in SO many other books. If this had been a new idea to me, I would have got a lot more out of this book. However, Tchaikovsky doesn’t offer anything new to the concept, so it all felt pretty mundane to me. This was then compounded by Daghdev’s insistence that the reader’s brain was too puny to understand a relatively simple concept, which really started to bother me once the concepts were laid out and I could completely comprehend them. 

Also, one of the strongest themes of the book for me was the dictatorship/censorship idea, but at the book’s conclusion I felt this could have been delved into a lot more, and I was left feeling unsatisfied.  

The last couple of minutes of the story were almost amazingly creepy and existential, but once again this was let down by Daghdev’s condescending narrative and telling us every single one of his thoughts – when it would have been way more effective to leave the reader with some questions about his state of mind/the group’s intent. 
 

Overall, still an enjoyable read, but one that had so much unfortunate missed potential.