The Algebraist on Schild's Ladder

As part of an attempt to read more novels I finally got around to reading "Schild's Ladder" by Greg Egan and "The Algebraist" by Iaian M Banks, both of which came out about 8 years ago just as I had somewhat overgorged myself on those authors and felt like a break (a long break, as it turned out, though I have reread their earlier books)
( I'm rather amused by the base similarity between the books )

On the stolen generation

Something I've seen a few people imply about the Stolen Generation, and something I used to believe myself, was that while regrettable it was just the result of an unfortunate combination of children taken into care being badly cared for in the past, and non-specified racism making government agents more likely to assume indigenous parents were incompetent.

While both of these factors come into it, afaict it went well beyond that (anyone who knows more about this is VERY welcome to pipe up)
EDIT: and they did! You're probably better off just reading the comments than my badly expressed blargle.

Most of this I got from Wikipedia and then this article.
( In which I rant )

Mightier than the sword

New ACOS, done entirely in pen!
Well, except the colouring, corrections, and an extra sound effect I added at the last minute. I tend to consider the "drawing my own panel edges" a failure, I and straight lines are not on the best of terms. Still, overall the pen thing is working pretty well, though I'm still not sure if not being able to mess with the picture too much once it's inked is good or bad. It means I don't spend so long fiddling pointlessly, but also means I can't fix the sort of large scale errors of flow etc that I only notice once it's "finished" (like the fact that what's going on in the penultimate panel isn't very clear)

Also, I belatedly realised that it might help I I bought decent (or at least not crap) paper.