So, I enjoyed this book a lot. But also, I have nuanced takes. I love me some sci-fi, especially linguistics-related, alien-culture-related sci-fi. I think the concepts presented here are really, really interesting. However, I don't think they're nearly as original as a lot of people seem to believe. Almost every detail about the Ariekei as people and as a culture, I've seen in other sci-fi, and often explored in more detail there. Aliens that use specially-bred biotech instead of machines was in All Tomorrows; people have been discussing the idea of a double-voiced alien language since, like, the 90's, on conlanging forums; "aliens that can't lie, but can communicate through elaborate metaphors to real events" was done on Star Trek! Halfway through, though, the ideas get more interesting. The Festival of Lies was definitely a new - and incredibly intriguing - concept, for me, at least. A group of aliens engaging in self-mutilation to avoid drug addiction is pretty neat, and presented as the horribly graphic-yet-confusing event it should be presented as. And the characters, generally, are pretty enjoyable.

The theme - what is a mind, when communication is so complex - is never stated out right, but is present in every single story beat. That's pretty neat, to me. Even Avice, early on, wondering about Ehrsul's cognition as a sentient AI, reinforces it.

My biggest gripe is that the ending just feels

imperialistic as fuck, and in a way that's portrayed as mostly uncomplicatedly good? Like, I understand that I, as an anthropologist and linguist, am probably going to have a weirder perspective on this than most readers, but how the hell is "all the aliens learned English and adopted European architecture" a GOOD ending? Have the Ariekei and the Embassytowners develop a creole that they can speak together! It's not a bad enough ending to ruin the book for me, and to be honest, you can see it coming 100 pages beforehand, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, I kind of was rooting for Scile's side - interfering with an alien culture strongly enough to change the entire way their society functions is so not anthropologically-approved. Also, Scile was just a more interesting character to me than Avice. Avice's main arc is that she... learns she has skills beyond doing the bare minimum? And then she yells at abunch of aliens so bad that their brains get irreparably changed? Meh.