After class yesterday, I realized that a lot of discomfort with Cyteen's universe comes from the fact that individuals' futures, to some degree, seem to be determined by forces outside their power. This outside force appears in the form of tape, genetic manipulation, and environmental manipulation, as with Ari. However, despite this level of control, and despite the disturbing subservience of the azi, the technology of tape and genetic manipulation doesn't really scare me on principle. What scares me in this is the culturally developed belief that behavior is deterministic.

Overall, I did enjoy Cyteen for the story and the characters, particularly in the development of the second Ariane. However, much of the politics and the verbal sparring went over my head, and I fear this was a significant portion of the novel. All of the different alliances and enmities between the major political influences in the novel seemed to change so fast, and often to cues that I as a reader did not pick up for several pages after.

So, this novel was absurdly huge, straight up finishing over break was more important than annotating at the time, unfortunately, but here it goes.