/lit/ - Literature

>>17849542
State Tectonics, Centenal Cycle #3 - Malka Ann Older (2018)
This entry hews more closely to the first book rather than the second, though without the problems of the first, mostly anyway. Almost every single character of any importance is a woman, and possibly every man is defined by his relation to a powerful woman.
Maryam, a minor character in the previous books, is the primary viewpoint. Mishima and Roz, the primaries for the first and second books respectively are relegated to secondary roles. Amran, a new character, is the fourth viewpoint. The four viewpoints are women, one with a small child, one who is pregnant and says for the entire book she could give birth at any time, a lesbian with intimacy issues, and a younger version of one of the viewpoints. Considering how it's gone, if there ever were another book, Amran would probably be the primary next. There are a couple of one-off viewpoints.
It's once again time for an election and voting integrity is imperiled. Disaffected members of Information are trying to interfere because that's sometimes what people do when they're disaffected. Disaffection is probably the primary theme of the trilogy overall. Each book is more cynical and skeptical of the system and society they live in, even though each of them are, or were, part of the establishment.
The biggest issue, though it wasn't one for me, is that everything exists to show off the social systems of the world. This isn't any different from the prior books, though the driving force for the narrative comes off as particularly thin with this one. While there are ostensible antagonists the conflict is mostly political maneuvering rather than outright conflict. What little physical violence there is, is almost entirely irrelevant to anything.
As with the first book, I thought the ending was too neat and simply resolved, but at least it was thematically appropriate and I was able to appreciate it. It could be argued this is a shaggy dog trilogy, but I didn't mind, because it was an interesting take on social systems that I enjoyed.
Rating: 4/5