The God was right on them. The one accelerator canon the Magdans could bring around in time, now they had weapons control again, chewed a nasty scar along the salvage vessel’s hull. Damage control said it was all cosmetic, and they’d given up winning beauty contests a long time ago.
— eyes of the void, pp. 512 – 513
Tag: Adrian Tchaikovsky
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A Colvari is a kind of bug-for-hire that can go through masses of data (gobbledy-gook) and snag the threads that are potentially useful to an employer. Haever, who’s a private investigator (he works for the equivalent of the CIA, in this future universe), doesn’t have much time to go through reams of data. Hence, the need for a Colvari. Oh, and Colvari are plural, because there is not one giant bug — a Colvari is masses of bugs, all writhing together in one ugly mass, constantly shifting, with a ‘translator’ box for a voice.
Haever has a secret meeting with his former boss who may (or may not) be selling him down the river, and when he gets back to his quarters, he senses immediately that something’s different about his Colvari.
“You’re a lot more businesslike than you used to be,” he commented quietly.
“We have undergone a partial reinstantiation,” Colvari confirmed.
“Do I get the old ‘you’ back? I kind of liked the way you were starting to talk.”
There was an odd pause, as though he’d said something in bad taste, but he couldn’t read anything in the way the Hiver stood. In the end they told him, “That won’t be possible, Agent Mundy. That version of ourself has been overwritten. These things are unavoidable. It is how they made us.”
— eyes of the void, p. 352You will notice, dear blog readers, that self has been reading Eyes of the Void at a scorching pace, much more scorching than the pace she set while reading Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs. And that is because, in Eyes of the Void, self can’t believe she is halfway through the series, and Solace and Idris have yet to kiss.
How superficial of you, self! This is Adrian Tchaikovsky, not Georgette Heyer! Nevertheless.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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The bugs in question are the Hanni, same creatures as the Vulture God’s crew member Kittering. The planet is a “dry world” named Ittring.
There are no landing pads. The control tower has a gravitic engine. You maneuver your spacecraft close enough to let “the invisible hands of docking control” latch onto the ship.
Then Solace, Kit and Kris walked gingerly down the ramp with nothing but a three-hundred metre drop through empty air beneath them.
— Eyes of the void, p.300Further, because the writer is Adrian Tchaikovsky, and he is incapable of creating a universe without also describing each and every inhabitant’s life cycle, here’s the life cycle of the bugs (Hanni):
All Hanni were male, until they finally went home and settled down. Which consisted entirely of fertilizing the eggs of a female. They then became female themselves and laid their own eggs. After which they died.
— eyes of the void, p. 303Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Much excitement to come.
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She felt a spike of affection for him, angsty little spacer that he was.
— Eyes of the void, p. 180IS Idris Telemmier an angsty little spacer? Yes, yes he is.
There isn’t as much action in Book 2 of The Final Architecture, but self still loves the universe and the characters Adrian Tchaikovsky has created.
Stay tuned.
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Love her. Maybe second only to Myrmidon Solace.
Wait, what about Olli Timmo, feisty captain of the Vulture God? Self loves her, too!
Whatever. This series has some really kick-ass women characters. Adrian Tchaikovsky better not off any of them in Book 3.
Ishmael Commercial Courts: Lawyers’ Duel between Kris and Mortin, an ignorant lout
Mortin took the initiative then, very direct, much like his advocacy style. She gave ground, hyper-aware of the space she had to work with. She was grinning, she realized. Also bad form but she couldn’t help it. She hated dueling, right up until the moment she actually found herself doing it.
— Eyes of the void, p. 58 -
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 -
Fortunately for dear blog readers, this quote is NOT by or about Steve Jobs!
Self has decided that, since it’s taking her forever to get to the end of the Steve Jobs biography, she will read another book concurrently. And that book is — DRUMROLL, TA-RA!
Quote of the Day:
Prayers didn’t fix spaceships.
— prologue, eyes of the void -
From which you may gather that self has been obsessively re-reading Shards of Earth, by British writer Adrian Tchaikovsky (She is also still reading — and hugely enjoying — Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson). From which you may gather that, yes, self did actually buy herself a copy (it was for a good cause, she supports her local independent bookstore)
Below, a very exciting scene: Solace point of view, p. 218
The laser caught her as she swooped down on the Tothiat, and her entire world dissolved into danger warnings and error messages. Solace aborted the attack instantly, using the gravity handles to scrabble backwards through the air, bobbing erratically. She had lost all the servos down one side, the plates of her armor half melted together by the heat. There was also a great deal of pain and blistered skin on the inside. But you could only heal from that if someone didn’t kill you first, so she put it out of her mind. She swung around, trying to handle Mr. Punch one-handed, trying to find her new enemy.
She found him just as he rammed a new cell into his exhausted laser and levelled it at her, faceless behind his visor.
Damn, she thought, and Rollo shot him, shattering that plastic mask and sending the man pitching backwards.
— Shards of Earth, p. 218Solace is fighting a Tothiat, which is just about the nastiest creature alive in any galaxy. Solace is a warrior, bred from a vat. But she has feelings. (Why? They shouldn’t have bred warriors with feelings — what good are they? Nevertheless. She is one of self’s favorite characters in Shards of Earth. She and the Int, Idris Telemmier)
Tchaivosky is not known for writing action scenes, but self is so grateful that he tried it with The Final Architecture. Of course, he excels.
Stay tuned.
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So far this summer, self has read 13 books.
Six of those were Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries (Thank you, Elly Griffiths!)
Two were Gone novels.
One was Becky Chambers’s latest, a continuation of her Wayfarers series.
One was biography (self’s current read, Steve Jobs)
She read Where the Crawdads Sing because of the movie (which she still hasn’t seen)
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Self finished Shards of Earth after four days of staying-home-all-day and not-changing-out-of-pajamas, four days of asking herself HOLY COW is-this-the-best-space-opera-she-has-EVER-read–or-what and how–is-jug-eared-Idris-Telemmier-the-hottest-space-hero-of-all-time?
FIVE STARS!
Plague, self’s current read, is giving her plenty of reason to reflect on January 6 Committee Hearings drama.
How was it fair? Caine was a liar, a manipulator, a murderer. And Caine was probably lying in satin sheets with Diana eating actual food and watching a DVD. Clean sheets, candy bars, and a wonderful, willing girl.
Caine who had never done a single good or decent thing was living in luxury.
Sam, who had tried and tried and done everything he could, was sitting in his house with a raging headache, smelling vomit with a pair of ibuprofen burning a hole in his stomach lining.
— Plague, A Gone Novel, by Michael Grant, p. 39
Kanlaon 