I loved Failure to Communicate so much that I rushed to pick up the prequel and read it in one sitting.

I couldn't have enough of the crew in FTC, especially Xandri, Diver and Chui, so this was great. Testing Pandora describes Xandri's joining of the crew, and the it has the exact same characters. It was nice to notice things that were similar in the two books, like Aki and the Captain being protective of Xandri and nudging her to eat.

On the other hand, in some ways this novella felt /too/ similar. After all, four years passed between Testing Pandora and Failure to Communicate - and yet, to me it felt like many of these relationships barely changed in those for years. For example, Christa and Xandri have the exact same rivalry they do four years later. This was a little strange, and I would have love to see more progression/change.

Also - tests or not, but I was surprised that Xandri was immediately offered to be the leader of the team instead of working her way up during those four years. In this situation, I understood Christa's anger better - I'd be pissed too if I had been doing my job well for years and the Captain brought in someone without any experience or formal education to be my boss, no matter how good Xandri did on that one test mission.

Another thing that was strange to me in both books is that literally everyone somehow seems to know Xandri is autistic, even without her telling them? Like, she worries about Diver finding out for example, but then we see in the interlude that Diver already knows. I wasn't sure what to do with that, or how he found out. This is especially strange given that autistics are even rarer here than in the "real" world.

There were several hints and references to the things Xandri had to do or survive, and the abuse she suffered - and while I don't wish to read about these in great detail, I still feel like it would have been interesting if there was a pre-prequel set even further back.

tldr; I loved this story and I loved getting more time with the crew, but it felt less like a prequel, and more like... the beginning of Failure to Communicate. I didn't really feel that there were supposed to be four years between the two books. (As far as I know, this was actually written before FTC, which would explain some of these things... but still, in that case I'm not sure why the author set the book four years later instead of just continuing this one.)

(By the way: two books, and I'm ashamed to confess at this point, but I still don't understand how slingspace works.)