Children of Memory

A disappointing end to an otherwise great series. I always dislike it when you read a whole story and then it hits you with the “and it was a dream” type trope and the simulation machine of this came way too close to that for my taste. It was just an extremely confusing read for the first 400 pages and then suddenly revealed it was a simulation machine and had some level of discussion on the idea of sentience/conciousness for the final 50 pages which was interesting but not nearly enough to get any sense of satisfaction from. Very frustrating when there was a LOT of potential for these topics with the whole kern turned robot perspective, the communal parasite perspective and the eventual simulation turned real liff perspective there were so many different and unique characters that could have had a lot to say about those main themes but they were almost completely wasted in the mess of the setup of the “colony”.