2010 science fiction novella in the Diving Universe series. The Spires
are an enigmatic artifact built by a now-vanished civilisation. Meklos
Verr is a security consultant hired to guard the archaeological
expedition… but nobody is quite what they appear.
Some novels give me the feeling that they'd have been better cut
down to novella length, with the good bits kept and the padding
removed. This is the opposite: it's both an archaeological puzzle and
a who's-the-villain mystery, and I'd have loved to have read more, or
about what these people did next. (Though perhaps it would have fallen
flat, as The Falls did to some extent.)
There's no cast overlap with the main Diving series, but the usual
socially awkward people are here; the three principals would all do
almost anything other than spend time aimlessly talking with people,
and for me that's come to be one of the joys of this series, its
representation of introverted people as normal rather than some sort
of exotic weirdo.
Naturally at this size it's a straightforward plot, but it still
manages to hold a few surprises. It could certainly be read in
isolation; there's nothing here that relies on knowledge of the rest
of the universe. Perhaps not outstanding, but definitely recommended.
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