Finished reading @aptshadow's The Doors of Eden. Whew. It's a really good book, and you should read it. A brief thread with some of my favourite passages (no spoilers):

(1/n)

"But this is still made landscape. We can never return it to what it was. The land is never still, and what we've made here cannot change and grow like a land should. It is a garden, but a garden is better than a wasteland."

(2/n)

"He was not good. He was good. He was not bad.

There are shades of qualities that your language does not accommodate. Between us there was not love or love but love. Love is pain sometimes. Sometimes pain is good ... complicated things."

(3/n)

"... what [she] had been looking for all her life: an escape from ordinary, the door to fairyland. A girl who'd never fit in, searching for a place nobody could fit in."

(4/n)

These passages exemplify one of the qualities of The Doors of Eden that stands out for me, that I think marks the best of SF, what I try to do myself - ask the question, but it's for the readers to answer, and you should never be *entirely* sure which side you're on.

(5/n)

Will note as an aside that Tchaikovsky loves the word "fractal", and it is indeed a lovely word.

Lastly, thank to @Hugo_Book_Club whose review made me know I had to get this book, even though I'm chary about novels longer than 500 pages. This one's worth every page.