I just figured it out. I feel like I'm invading her privacy by seeing that photograph.
That's what it is.
It's a kind of reflex that's well ingrained, regardless of what's going on in the photo. I feel that way even if the woman in the photo intended for things to be pictured as they are.
@gwynnion I couldn't stop laughing, while in the waiting room of a health clinic, when I got to the part where Ben is stuffing dollar bills down the owlbear's pants. 🤣
@gwynnion Riley felt kind of like another female iteration of Aurvandil. I don't know if that was intentional, but it totally fit with the recurring people with "linked souls" theme that pops up throughout Navigator's universes.
@gwynnion I like that aspect a lot. It reminds of the "everything and everywhen is so fucking HUGE" that permeated many of the 1970s sci-fi novels that I read in high school. You capture that immensity rather well, I think.
@gwynnion They do feel comparatively small. I wonder if the space program (and moon landing) of NASA in the 1960s/1970s created a kind of wonder about the scale and openness of space that was reflected in novels of the era which are now missing?