From which dear blog readers may correctly deduce that self has reluctantly torn herself away from Steve Jobs and the glories of Apple design, and has re-entered the universe of The Final Architecture. Woo hoo!
Book 2 is called Eyes of the Void, and in his usual coy manner Adrian Tchaikovsky keeps a lot of space — space as in actual space — between our two precious babies, the Int Idris Telemmier, and the Partheni Executor Myrmidon Solace. The two used to have a thing back in the day (for about two weeks), before Solace was put back on ice by her fellow Partheni (for forty years) and Idris became the tortured Intermediary, fleeing from his past with a fetching lawyer, Kris “Kick-Ass” Almier.
Idris and Solace have in effect changed places: Idris is in space with Solace’s Sisters, teaching them how to go through Unspace like a Boss, and Solace is slumming with the crew of the Vulture God at Drill 17 on Hismin’s Moon.
On Hismin’s Moon, Solace & Co. enter a Den of Iniquity — the lair of a black-market trader, stacked with crates of old tech.
Solace point of view:
It was something that sparked contempt in a lot of Partheni, the hoarding, pack-rat mentality of Colonials. Except Solace had seen their technicians — and spacers were all technicians to one degree or another — make gold out of dross in situations a Partheni tech would have given over as impossible. Her people had no idea, honestly, just how much invention necessity could be mother of.
— eyes of the void, by adrian tchaikovsky, p. 43
Kanlaon 