Stuff That Matters In Life

I said I wouldn’t read another one, but it was available in the library, I couldn’t resist.

Shadow Puppet is next in the series after Shadow of the Hegemon. The story is exciting, but the characters are getting old.  Same good guys, same bad guys.

I see how it is very difficult to write a series. You want to retain some continuity, but it would be redundant to keep referring back to the previous books.

One interesting point in Shadow Puppet: since this is a scifi futuristic theme, in vitro fertilization was common in order to pick and choose from the gene pool. But what happens to the fertilized eggs that are not implanted?

The main character Bean expressed grief when a few of his fertilized eggs were discarded. Those were his “babies”. He thought of himself as much a murderer as the evil scientist who killed the experimental one-year-old babies. It was a subtle point for the pro-life position, but a well-made one.

I am definitely taking a break and not reading the next in the series.