Beautifully interwoven narrations that form a portrait of a life that, if not originally utopian, send a damned sight better than here and now. Charming.

Not Wodehouse's finest work. Also, it is much less a comfort food read to me just now, to read about the terribly difficult lives of landed gentry. Add in some racist imperialist assumptions about people in India, and on the whole I recommend giving this one a miss.

Gorgeous. Complex enough that I'm still picking up new things on the third read through. I continue to be impressed by the narrative style of first-person semi-omniscient.

Disappointingly dissimilar to the rest of the books in this series, and also difficult to place in the timeline. But I'm still glad I read it, and Chambers' prose is so clean, which is delightful

I am impressed that Leckie found another ingenious way to tell a story from the viewpoint of first-person semi-omniscient. It's that exact narrative style that I enjoyed os much in her Ancilliary books. Slow to build, I honestly would had abandoned this book if I did not already have such trust in the author. My trust was rewarded, this is a lovely piece of world-building and slowly rising momentum. I could wish for a slightly better ending for the characters, but I also appreciate the sort of tactful privacy that Leckie lends them. Also on the topic of pricacy, I appreciate that the main character (or maybe I should say the main human character) is trans and that is not particularly an issue at any point in the narrative. This character, Eolo, is addressed as "you," which places the reader as trans in the narrative, with a subtlety that I find delicious.

Rereading this book, which was written the year I was born, I've noticed so much that I didn't pick up on back a decade or so ago when I last read it. The biggest thing is that apparently in the 80s, homophobia was so ubiquitous that it was perfectly reasonable to assume that people would be violently homophobic even in the space future. Current sci-fi, even that by Bujold, assumes that society is broadly tolerant. The other thing that ages this book is the assumption that men who are nurtures are not fathers. Even in an all-male society, "alternate nurturers" stay home with the babies and fathers go to work. I'm happy to report, however, that the espionage and mayhem all hold up perfectly. Still a fun read, even though the homophobia was really quite jarring.

I backed this book on Kickstarter, because John Shore is one of my favorite bloggers. It did not disappoint. I felt all the feelings. Possibly because this is about real life, possibly because it's an adult novel where I generally stick to children's, or possibly for some other reason, the ending feels...not ended. I love this book, but it needs a sequel to feel complete. SO I'm keeping this at 4 stars, 5th star pending after I get to read what happens next.