The Long Mars

Enjoyable read but...
But what... Hard to put a finger on what. Possibly theres more than one book here with a central theme ie Stepping, a collection of themed novellas. Theses the extension out into Long Mars of the title.To a lesser degree theres the further exploration of Long Earth . Then theres the Homo Superior theme, seeds of which were planted in earlier books plus the question of evolved other alternatives to life generally.

Plot driven; the central characters just perform to drive the plot. Example - the inventor of the potato driven stepper machine turns up but aside from some antipathy between him and his daughter, which reveals little about either character, hes undrawn. Suggestions of post singularity themes in two characters who again just turn up to help move the plot from A to B.
Not that the plots all that bad kept the pages turning and did link with the plots of the earlier books, so felt like some things were being resolved.
So... too many players all behaving like puppets to the plot which ultimately left it a book I'm not likely to re read other than to clarify a plot thread when reading the next... which I will with some diluted enthusiasm.

Had I been reading this, rather than listening to an audiobook, I'm sure I would have lemmed it - though that has been the case for the whole series. It's particularly the case for this one. Whereas very little has happened in the series, as in there has been no clearly defined beginning-middle-end plot, nothing happened in this one. Obviously things happened, but they didn't really have much impact on me.
Whilst I'll probably listen to the audiobook of the next one (I don't know if another has been announced, but I'd be surprised if there isn't another one), I'll not be impatiently waiting for it.