In the sequel Sarah and Annalise are struggling, trying to eke out a living in the hindfleet. Sarah’s body may need constant readjustment and replacement as she’s slowly falling apart, Annalise may need constant surgeries to remove the implants poisoning her, but at least they are together. Everything is not fine, but they are sure they can make it work, they have to. And at least they are together again. But when fabricants and humans start spewing up silver bile and attacking everything in their path, another parasite appears and spaceships are turned into ramming weapons spreading this new disease, they soon find themselves on the run again. And worst of all, Sarah finds herself separated from Annalise all over.
In a way this book functions as a repetition of the first book (on purpose), moving the reader (and the characters) through the events as if in a fun house mirror. One major difference is that Cora and Sarah now know what’s coming, fear it and love each other, allowing for more trust and communication between them, but also an additional layer of horror, both of which I loved. I in general really enjoyed the additional character development moments in this book, allowing us to see how the characters’ relationships had changed in the time between book one and two and how they dealt with their trauma and fears.
Both Sarah’s and Annalise’s and Sarah’s and Cora’s relationships are given a lot more time and development here and I especially enjoyed the development between Cora and Sarah. Their relationship had been left somewhat unresolved at the end of book one and so I was really excited, when I saw that it got such a big focus here. They were a very important part of the story for me and I really liked reading how they dealt with the events of book 1 as well as a few other questions that were left open in their relationship (and yes. It is poly! Complicated, but poly!). In general, the characters are further explored and we learn a lot more about Sarah’s past and her existence outside of her function of caring for Annalise, which was both really interesting and heartbreaking. Alongside homophobia and transphobia, this story also explores ableism as Sarah loses certain functions and Annalise is disabled from the implants, as well as the way fabricants are dehumanized and treated as disposable machines. We also get to learn a lot more about other people in the fleet (many of which suck!) and a few more world building details, which really added to my enjoyment of the story and made me even more excited to read the third installment of the series. I don’t want to spoiler too much, but if you, like me, thought well book one was good but I have so many questions… some of them are answered here! And many new ones are asked! It’s great!)
**Caution: I discuss some spoilers in this paragraph ** In general, I think this sequel avoided the second-book-in-a-trilogy-problem very well, because while it did move the plot forward (and left us in a completely different space than it started, which makes me itch to dive into the third installment immediately!) it didn’t feel as if it was just here to move us towards a grand conclusion, instead using the space it had very well for aforementioned character development as well as diving a lot more deeply into psychological horror. While the first book focused on Sarah’s fears, this book also examined Annalise’s internalized lesbophobia, which lead to some truly horrifying stuff (the blur world and its utter terror and suffocating ‘protection’ will stick with me for a while for sure!) and I utterly adored it! It wasn’t an easy read, this book really didn’t pull any punches as it explores the horror of the closet, but it made the payoff at the end so much sweeter.
All in all, another incredible installment of sci-fi psychological horror with additional lesbians and trans characters (I need more of Sunan in book three! I loved them so much!), some really tense horror as well as a great exploration of autonomy under an unjust system and how societal prejudice can force you to change and harden in ways that are damaging to yourself and your relationships. I really enjoyed it and I’m excited to dive into the next book in the series.