96 pages
English language
Published April 5, 2018
Welcome to the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals ruled by exiled human scholars and powerful families, and held together by living mindships who carry people and freight between the stars. In this fluid society, human and mindship avatars mingle in corridors and in function rooms, and physical and virtual realities overlap, the appareance of environments easily modified and adapted to interlocutors or current mood.
It's a short novella with a bit of a convoluted plot and mystery, but I found the characters amazingly fleshed out. There was something almost poetic in the world and the way they all navigate it, not everything is explained or described thoroughly, which leaves questions but also a lot to interpret.
I read this on the heels of Citadel of Weeping Pearls, and found this story to be more up my alley. Citadel had gotten me curious about the Xuya universe, but this book told a story that grabbed me more strongly. It packs a lot of nuance and richness into such a short story, and it only has me more curious to see more of what Xuya has to offer.
