Tranquil thoughts

Well, finished Tranquility Wars. I generally liked it, although it ended rather abruptly.

As far as my speculation was concerned, I was close on all matters, but not completely right on anything. Tehani's affair was with the Minister of Defense, not the Chairman. Rango did confront Hunter about Tehani, but it didn't turn into a fight. And Tehani did go back to Mars.

But the encounter with Rango just didn't make any sense to me. They were challenging Hunter about the Minister Tehani's having the affair with; important information for the reader to find out, but I couldn't figure out why those pirates would care about Hunter's knowledge, or lack thereof, about it.

And that should have been important information for Hunter, but it didn't seem to make any difference to him. That is to say, he knew it, but it didn't have any effect on him.

And a minor bit of irritation; why was such a big deal made about what putative means? You have a very smart man talking to another very smart one; why would Goldmatt assume that Hunter didn't know the meaning of the word? If it was because of Hunter's reaction, that reaction should be noted. It isn't that unusual of a word.

Another minor disappointment: after the raid, just before returning to Mars, Hunter finds out his girlfriend is pregnant. He talks to her just after finding out, and says that he's going to stay with her, and she refuses. A good idea on her part, although one that damned few people would be able to follow through on. What I expected from her, though, was pointing out that if he really wanted to stay, he would have gone back to talk to Lance and called it off before waking her up. And then he would have told her that he was staying just because he'd changed his mind and wanted to do so.

Not a big deal, and not something most people would have said. But after the discussions about handling bits of relationships throughout the book, I rather expected it. Plus, it would have really pointed out to him that he didn't really want to stay (even if he was demonstrably being an idiot to leave).

Anyway, as I said, I did enjoy the book, though I certainly wouldn't consider it flawless. But it did a very good job of keeping my attention, and got me thinking more about what was coming than most books do. (Generally, I don't, because it has a tendency, for better or worse, to ruin the book.)