: I wish someone had asked what the deal is with Sigma Octanus - is it actually
: a misspelled Sigma Octantus, which lies 270 lightyears from Earth, or is
: it a different, coincidentally named system? That's always bugged me. Of
: course, it could be a reverse Harvest - lying hundreds of real lightyears
: away, but practically on the front door via slipspace.

There are a few star systems mentioned that makes anyone familiar with astronomy cringe. The 88 constellations cover the entire sky's worth of stars. There's no need for an Ectanus 45 which sounds like the Octanus (properly, Octantis), or a star system called Eridanus when that's an entire constellation. They've shied away from using actual stars in the sky so colonies can be an amorphous distance away. I'd prefer to see real stars used since the story takes place in the Milky Way.