Surtac wrote:

starexplorer wrote:

I couldn’t agree more on Cyteen. One of the greatest SF books ever written, and CJC’s masterpiece, as I see it.

(parenthetically, I'll never forget the joy, and the smile on my face, when, about 150 pages in, I realized what the book was really about!)
 

Ok Star. Give it up - the realisation that is.  You can't just drop a narrative hook like that and expect me not to bite.

Fwiw, the other thing this re-read has done is to give me the explicit key to finally understanding exactly what is happening in Forty Thousand in Gehenna.
 

Haha - turnabout is fair play. But I really thought I was referring to the obvious in my comment. 
if anyone has not yet read Cyteen, please go do so forthwith. This a spoiler alert, a warning, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER AT PERIL OF SPOILAGE,
SPOLER ALERT
I'm still going to state this carefully lest someone incautiously stumble by…
After the fate is determined of very senior Reseune scientist Ari, we receive perhaps the best exploration of the nature/nurture dichotomy I’ve ever encountered in literature with respect to human personality. That seems to me to be the core of the book, and certainly the most compelling and even joyous piece. No doubt the book is about other things, a well-conceived society on a very different planet for one, etc. But this is the heart of the matter. 
Agree or no?
 

I agree with you all.  Cyteen is without doubt one of the best pieces of Science Fiction ever written.  What a brilliant mind our CJ has.

If you haven't read Cyteen by now, you probably won't.  So, I see no harm in spoilery.
 

Ok, I'll start getting my disparate thoughts, such as they are, into some sort of order and I'll then spin up a new thread in the Grove.  That's likely the best location for such a discussion.

Be warned there will almost certainly be spoilers for both Cyteen and Forty Thousand in Gehenna.
 

Cyteen is one of my all time favorites. I did not really understand Forty Thousand in Gehenna until I read Cyteen.
Looking forward to discussion.