Well I'm still not sure if I liked this story, but after gadfly-Sokrates comes to play (no spoilers, that's in the blurb) it was delightfully classic Walton (again, with the depictions of childbirth and parenting that broke my heart, although not as badly as [b:My Real Children|18490637|My Real Children|Jo Walton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1380218782s/18490637.jpg|26174356]).

I feel like a passing acquaintance with [b:The Republic|30289|The Republic|Plato|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386925655s/30289.jpg|1625515] would help here. Having had it come up multiple times in my uni life lately is what inspired me to finally give the series a go, so I can't speak to what the story would look like without knowing the basic premise of Plato's thought experiment.

I'll keep going with the series.