Mixed feelings about this one. I picked it up before I knew that Anderson is a pen name for Sarah Zettel, whose SF I already like but who has since moved on to romance and mystery. The plot is complex, the world is murky, there's too many POVs that only complicate the story. But I kept turning the pages, trying to figure it all out. The writing was good, and several aspects of the world are intriguing: immortality, the electronic companions implanted in the minds of the characters, the Guardians who maintain the peace using superior technology. In some ways, although the stories are very different, certain aspects of the world reminded me of Zettel's other work, Kingdom of Cages.

I liked the main character (Therese), a mature woman who has been called back to service from retirement and her family. I really liked the ending, but I didn't completely understand it, tbh. In some ways, the book was too long. In others, it wasn't long enough. Therese's back story plays a significant role, yet it isn't fleshed out enough to really grasp all the ways it influences the action. I feel like this story is a sequel to a book that was never written. But it is still worth reading. ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3187876.html

Gritty complex far-future espionage story, whose heroine is recalled from retirement with her young family to investigate the disappearance of an old frenemy. I found it all a bit too complex and the characters not all that attractive. I know some people liked it more than me. ( )

I found it confusing and unengaging. ( )

This was a surprisingly good book. What I had assumed was a fairly straightforward military/spy sf type story actually turns out to be a fairly thoughtful novel with some pretty well-drawn characters. Anderson's depiction of a totalitarian society of space stations and gas giant moons in which the ruling family retains control through a system of debt slavery and a monopoly over the water supply is particularly vivid. She really captures the desperation, paranoia and do-anything-to-survive compulsions that coerce otherwise moral people to continually engage in zero-sum games to survive, thereby perpetuating the very system which keeps them down. She also poses some penetrating questions about humanitarian interventions and to what extent a society devoted to non-violence can influence and change a tyrannical one without forsaking its own principles.

C. L. Anderson is the pseudonym for veteran author Sarah Zettel and I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for some of her other books. ( )

Written under a pseudonym by Sarah Zettel, I thought this was an interesting addition to her work. Sarah Zettel is one of my favorite authors, but this didn't quite hold up for me, for reasons I can't quite define. At the same time, its a good read, dealing carefully with very human characters doing their best under ugly, constrained circumstances in a totalitarian state. Given the potential for technologies to enhance the potential of totalitarianism, I think its an important and interesting theme for science fiction to tackle, and she does it as well as anyone out there. ( )