A review by crimsoncor
Vast by Linda Nagata

5.0

Such a fascinating book.

Spoiler

Lot just gets more and more interesting. His entire relationship with Clemantine is so fucked up. Like, he doesn't "want" to dominate and control her, except actually his entire biological imperative has been remapped so that is all he wants to do. Watching his transformation from ostensible hero with some questionable impulses in the second book into an almost (though inadvertent) villain is really cool. It really remaps a lot of what we know about Jupiter too, as you learn that he was basically incapable of controlling his abilities.

. This books leans way harder into the "what is consciousness" question when you can digitize people than the last one, though that has been there since the first book. Just becomes much more of a plot hinge here.

Absolutely loved this series. Kinda wish I had read it back when it originally came out, because it would have totally blown my mind then. Now, it is really well done, but so many of the ideas have been picked up in stuff I've already read, it isn't quite as awe inspiring