I mistakenly read Harmonies of the Net before I read this and now wish I had been intelligent enough to read them in the intended order. This book cleared up lots of the questions I struggled with when reading "Harmonies". In retrospect, the whole series is much more coherent now that I have the intended background to understand "Harmonies", my fault for fouling the intended order. Interesting story and the queued "Protection" the the Cocheta's conditioned the cave seekers to provide at the expense of their abilities to function in their society explains the hostile actions of Nayati and even Stephen's "Papa". This book draws the series together and makes the concerns of both the Alliance and the Recons more understandable. Stephen's early conditioning by his "Papa" also explains his extreme sense of "guilt" and sensitivity to tactile senses that are part of his confusing public persona. Once Wesley/Anevai decode his desire for physical contact for what it is rather than an attempt to use sexuality as a manipulative tool, they become much better at supporting his extreme lack of self confidence and allow him to recognize his unique abilities. Series is really much better than I had imagined. Now I need to take the time to read again in the proper order and see if the implications presented provide a tangible philosophical case. ( )

Deeper, darker and more convolute.

Stephen and Anevai are up on Cetacean, along with the still unresponsive Hono. Wesley is still downworld, and Stephen is sure that if he could just finish a conversation with him for 5 minutes or so, he'd be able to complete a report for the Net Authority - on Wesley's completely new approach to Nspace editing. When nobody seems inclined to allow him to leave, he uses Wesley's techniques to steal a shuttle and crashlands himself and Anevai back onto the planet. However Wesley isn't that amenable to revealing secrets entrusted to him by others. The other question Stepehn desperately wants answering is why Nayati tried to kill him, and how similar his Cochetas are to the invisibles from his fragmented childhood memories. Nayati isn't that keen on revealing answers either, and only a desperate trek into the mountain caves can discover a startling Truth.

The jumps of viewpoint are sometimes a little disconcerting, but again are well signaled and it is clear who is speaking. Most disturbingly we get a lot more insight into Stephen's childhhod, with repressed memories surfacing at unwanted times. And it's very clear that Stephen didn't have a happy childhood. Or teenage years. And is in fact doing remarkably well to be functioning at all with all the downworld and offworld pressures that are being brought to bear.

Again Jane does a superb job of keeping the characters knowledge internally consistent and basing each one's actions on what they know, even if to the omnipotent reader it is obvious they are missing some key interpretation. Again Stephen gets the brunt of this, but his friends are there to hold him up.

I wasn't totally convinced about the ending, but it works and is much less of a cliffhanger than the previous book. A very solid continuation of the series. Read them!

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Much as above. At least some of the mysteries are explained by the end, and it's just waiting on the concluding volume to sort out where the dust will settle and whether Stephen gets to decide his own fate. ( )

This is part of Fancher's Netwalkers trilogy. It features compelling characters, tight fast-paced plotting, intrigue, good world-building, and, far from least, excellent writing. But for publishing difficulties unrelated to the excellence of the writing it would have been promoted and read far more widely when it first came out. It is now out of print in paper editions and available only from second hand sources, but it is now also available as an ebook with the rest of the trilogy at Closed Circle Publishing, an internet ebook publishing site run by Fancher, C.J. Cherryh and Lynn Abby, where they make available their out of print books in ebook format along with new works as written. I recommend Fancher's work highly. ( )