What drew me to this book was the title – I have listened to the song “Dream Sweet in Sea Major” many times and the idea of a book that shares the unnerving energy of the song excited me, even though I was unsure if this was an intentional choice by the author. The cover added to this impression: it shows a figure in an incomprehensible landscape being drawn upwards by tendrils of some kind. I really like the hand-drawn/painted style and the colour scheme of the cover as it puts me in mind of classic science fiction such as Brave New World and The Kraken Wakes.

My immediate reaction upon starting to read the book is that I was wrong about the ‘vibe’ of the book, although I wasn’t disappointed. The book is a politically complex cyberpunk heist. The first chapter is a good introduction to this, establishing a character planning a small-scale zoo heist to obtain herself a pet monkey. I did not particularly like this character – she seemed to act without considering the consequences of her actions on those around her (for example the monkey, who has been moved from a large zoo enclosure with companions to a small and isolated pet-shop cage). However, this does not mean she is poorly written; the fact that I’m so quickly able to judge her personality and form an opinion shows how well the author has communicated the core of this character.

The second chapter is where I began to get really excited about the writing. I loved the opening paragraphs describing the feel of a storm rolling into a city, expanding on how the ambient electricity in the air sparks the sensors of those with implants. It’s an incredible passage that really helps with establishing the cyberpunk feel of the world, while at the same time introducing the new POV character as a far more introspective and detail-oriented person with a different way of perceiving the world due to her ‘upgrades’. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of chemical storms (as a result of Korea’s destruction prior to the book) and altitude-based hierarchies.

One wonderful detail I loved is the selection of ‘in-world’ quotes that start each chapter, ranging from airport announcements to transcripts of council meetings. They relate to the content of the chapter, and it’s a fun worldbuilding technique that immediately gives you a wider view of the setting the characters are interacting with.

For some reason, at the end of Chapter 7, the reader skips a page when moving to Chapter 8. I only noticed because I tabbed back to check something and noticed a page that was there when moving backwards but not forwards. That was the sole instance I found, but it’s possible that I may have missed other pages and not realised. The formatting in Chapter 19 initially confused me – it took me a while to figure out that a) I was intended to read each column individually and that b) they were two different points of view.

I liked the characters of Mathies and Sauterelle but struggled to connect to Mumilaaq until the end of the book. I think my initial view of her may have been a misjudgement and following her kind-hearted choices in the latter half of the book I needed to readjust my expectations.

NetGalley lists this as book 2 of Jovian Symphony but while reading I did not get the impression that this was a sequel. The worldbuilding was dense (with rewritten geography, space politics, and immortal Callistans) but it was understandable as a standalone book. Overall, I really enjoyed it – some of my favourite parts were where I started to get glimpses of the wider world these characters exist in, as it’s very clear that the author has imagined far more than they have placed onto the page.