Hello Ms. Eskridge (not Mrs.!),
As you could probably guess, I just read Solitaire the other day, and thought it was excellent. The central section, where Jackal deals with VC, was harrowing, and I appreciated the unusualness of a SF novel about business management. I wouldn’t have thought that subject could hold my interest, but it did. (Of course the book was about other things too.)
My only question about the book is: What exactly is a web? At first I thought it was a group of age-mates, all the people on the island who were born in the same year, or something like that. But then at one point someone tells Jackal that her web was lucky to have the cool house that they did, and it seemed like a web must be smaller than I’d thought. Is it just a randomly-selected subset of Jackal’s age-mates?
Thanks for writing such a good book, and I look forward to reading more of your novels.
Daphne
You’re right about the web – they are roughly the same age, probably in a 4 or 5 year spread just so they have a spectrum of experience among themselves. I think the part you’re referring to is that Jackal’s parents had a nice house, “a special growing-up place for the special child of Ko.”
It’s interesting to me how many readers comment on the business aspect of the book. I’ve always found it wacky to extrapolate a future without business (not to mention housework, utility bills, dentistry, volunteerism, menstruation….). Seems to me these things will always be with us.
I’m glad you enjoyed the book.