Peter's Reviews > Ghost Spin

Catherine Li is married to the centuries old and incredibly wealthy AI named Cohen. Not many people understand their relationship... even they don't understand it very well. But when Cohen dies suddenly, and the official reports say it's suicide, she can't accept it... in part, because death is complicated for AIs, as parts of them may still be alive. And, in fact, at least one significant part is alive, and trapped sharing the body of a pirate captain to serve as his ship's navigational computer. But there are many players also seeking parts of Cohen, and his fate and that of another AI may help determine the course of human civilization.

This is the final part of the Spin trilogy, although it's a very loose trilogy, where each installment's story stands more or less alone... relationships develop and change with the characters who recurr, and that might make it difficult to recommend the second or third part as a "standalone", but if you only remember the characters and not the plot (as sometimes happens with me), you're usually fine jumping in to any of the sequels without much of a refresher.

It's not just the plots that change, it's also the type of story it is, and, to a certain extent, the type of universe it exists in. What I mean is, things like how FTL is done and what technologies are available change from book to book... not so much in a "they didn't remember their continuity" way (although there are a few blips that I felt I had to just "go with"), but one of the rarer things in science fiction series, a world where science hasn't "stopped" and major advancements continue in between books. Not "they developed a super weapon that's top secret or otherwise doesn't affect anybody but the main characters" but more "okay, because that old way doesn't work anymore, now people travel like this, which has a different set of problems." It's a refreshing change although in a few instances jarring. Similarly, some of the callbacks to previous books where I might have preferred to not see what happened to certain characters because it conflicted with how I saw them.

The story itself worked really well, if a bit more confusing at times, which has to be expected with multiple versions of the same character running around, but I was kept interested in seeing where it would go. A few time jumps also weakened the book for me as I wanted to see stuff that happened in the in-between time, where it didn't feel natural that nothing would happen.

Compared to the other books in the series, I don't think it's as solid as the second book (although, where I said in my review that that book wasn't always exciting but was relentlessly interesting, this book managed the balance a little better). I liked it better than the first book, but I don't think it's as cohesive a story and I could see other people might not agree... it just hit on different buttons that worked better for me. I really enjoyed it, but at the same time I could see other people not.

Still, ratings are personal, and overall, I'm quite happy I finally got around to buying it, and was sad to discover the author's been somewhat quiet in the last few years... I do want to see her return to science fiction, as she's a real talent for the more hard variety (while still centering it with good character work) and we need more writers with skill at both.