Generation Ship

Well that was good fun. And remarkably well constructed. Compelling all the way through, good characters, interesting story. Just really well written. Reading this reminded me of reading The Martian, another well told page turner book. Only Mammay also is able to write human relationships.

The primary story is an interesting mix of sci-fi themes. Generation Ships and the political factions of folks living in a bottle for 200 years, that's the main story. But we also get some interesting alien planets, some AI stuff, some cyberpunk, it's a nice mix. Maybe one ingredient too many but it's fine and entertaining.

But the best part of the book is he somehow has several distinct sympathetic POV characters. And two of them are contemptible people, just really bad at their job and somewhat malevolent. They aren't evil anti-heroes either, they're just flawed people in a position of too much authority. It's kind of an interesting trick of writing! (The counterpoint to that is there's one perfect character, not a POV nor main character, but she's called upon to resolve conflicts in a somewhat deus ex machina fashion).

Also appreciated this book after reading Planetside. That book was a little too military to me, this had a lot more going on culturally.