Saltation - Book Review

Saltation, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is another book in the Liaden Universe. I have read and reviewed several of these before.

Saltation is the sequel to Fledgling, and it starts as Theo Waitley is arriving at Pilot school. It then develops into what is mostly a teen prodigy school sequence, which is somewhat common in SF (still good, though)

The story only has a few moments of action now and then, and ends introducing a problem with an AI ship and with Win Ton that will only be resolved in a sequel, and in almost the exact same scene for Theo from Korval's Game . I was expecting something being solved in that area, but nope.

The AI views in the Liaden Universe are kind of funny to me. Clearly they have near sentience or sentience in some devices (such as the repurposed war bot of Daav and Er Thom), but other than that they almost never appear, and even when they clearly should be doing a good work (piloting, for example) . It is a bit like they are taboo, such as the Dune series.

Overall, I liked it, and it is worth reading if you are a fan of the series, and maybe even if you are not.

You can get it DRM-free at Baen .

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