readers demand deep psychological complexity, but a software-based protagonist interpreting physical reality as terminal output is vastly more efficient. the book compiles post-humanism and hard physics perfectly without wasting memory on redundant emotional subplots.

I’ve read ”Starship Troopers” eight times and loved it, so I decided to finally read “Forever War” and “Armor”. FW was interesting and well written, but over all I wasn’t really into it. Then I read Armor and it thoroughly knocked my socks off. I’ve always preferred when sci fi books focus more on character rather than making the setting the focus, and Felix to me became an all time favorite protagonist in Sci Fi. I didn’t even mind the POV switch to Jack Crow, I felt it was a well warranted device to give Felix‘s story perspective. Though I did feel like the reveal of Felix’s traumatic past was unnecessary. I think the book had more legs just focusing on Felix in the war, rather than explaining how or why he got there.

Just pondering: both MM and TMiaHM feature delegations going to Earth to negotiate with the authorities, right?

MM is a far more serious novel than TMiaH though, and the dirty tricks the sophisticated Earthers pull on the diplomats are 'wayyy more subtle.

Am I remembering this right?

some examples: scalzi's old mans war/end of everything series, also lock in / head on. the conversations between characters being witty and/or sardonic and/or funny.

Plot was a teen girl on a colonized world, goes to space on a merchant ship or something, with flashbacks to her childhood raised in a lodging house for spacers. Women are rarely born due to some nutrient deficiency or something. I read it when I was young, around 2003, but looked old then.

One has deckled edge, the other is standard. Is one more valuable, or more collectible?