"Elysium" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Let's talk!

A few discussion topics in case you're looking for a starting point:

1. What did you think of the writing?
2. What did you think of the chapter/glitch structure?
3. What do you think some of the recurring symbols meant?
4. What do you think the real ending was?
5. What worked or did not work for you?

[Kristin B.]

This one was very not for me. I can appreciate what the author was trying to do, but I really don't think it succeeded.

1. I thought the writing was overly repetitive. There was a lot of interesting stuff in there, but nothing got the chance to really come to fruition. I felt left with a very incomplete picture.
2. The glitch structure was interesting and I think I actually would have enjoyed it had it been smoother. Had the transitions been cleaner.
3. I haven't the foggiest. Wisdom and nature? I'm not good at reading deeper meanings. If an author says the curtains are blue I tend to just think "hey, they like blue curtains."
4. I took the ending at face value. The computer system shut itself down and the aliens continued to live on Earth, while humans were off in another part of the galaxy. I have no idea how that fits in at all with the historic love story that this book was based off of, but I think that was the part of the story I actually almost enjoyed.
5. The repetition did not work for me at all. The glitching was interesting. I think that would have been really cool if the story were set up more clearly from the beginning. The only reason I managed to stomach the constant character change was because I happened to find out before I started reading that everything was a computer program. With more clarity at the beginning I think I would have liked it even more. I also really liked the genetic mutations and mechanical enhancements that the humans ended up using.

My review should give you an idea of my immediate feelings when I first closed the book. (view spoiler)[
This read like a fever dream crossed with a creative writing college assignment. Take two characters, put them in different scenarios, see what you can write in a couple hours, then swap. But make sure that you either have a fever of 103 or are on so much cold medicine that you are just as delirious. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ad infinitum. Or for 199 pages. Which in this case felt infinite. And throw in some lines of computer code while you're at it. Maybe your roommate is a computer science major and she wandered in and messed with your assignment while you were hallucinating through your illness. Oh, and don't forget the elk and the owl. Your friend from across the hall is obviously an ecology major and didn't want to feel left out. (hide spoiler)]

I'm thankful this was a quick read, because I was definitely not the target audience.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

LOL at your review!

[Anthony]

I found the writing to be quite subtle and artful in each distinct chapter. I’m not convinced she achieved her goals in terms of layering these various iterations of a loving relationship in meaningful ways, but ultimately I admired her ambitious approach, and I was always compelled by her moment-to-moment storytelling skills.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Anthony wrote: "I found the writing to be quite subtle and artful in each distinct chapter. I’m not convinced she achieved her goals in terms of layering these various iterations of a loving relationship in meanin..."

Hmm! One of the first reflections I had was how unpolished I found the writing...I don't think I recovered from that impression.

I didn't have any idea what I was getting into other than a broken AI was trying to tell a story. The first few iterations really upset me (I don't like stories where romantic love is the A plot, in general) and then the second one seemed to be a man cheating on his partner who was dying of what seemed to be portrayed as AIDS, but then we learn that the couple had agreed to allow sex outside the relationship and yet Adrian was punished for it, which adds a lot of unhealthy things into a plot I don't really like anyways.

I really wanted things to build more, to see a few ways a relationship could end (to tie in symbolically to the confusion we have as to why Antinous died), I wanted Hector/Helen and the bodyguard guy to take revolving positions that connote one finite thing without saying it.

And then, I'll be honest, I was pretty upset when it seemed that the "end" was about the son of a romantic heterosexual couple when Hadrian and Antinous is considered one of the great gay love stories.

I wanted more subtlty, more continuity, more heart infused into each element.

And what were the owl and the elk? They showed up like they were some sort of "guide" but I never discovered to what??

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

For those perhaps not familiar with the Antinous and Hadrian story, the rough sketch is that Hadrian was caesar of Rome around 120-138 AD and he took a lover, as grown men could do in that time, named Antinous. They caused something of a scandal, because while it was fine for two men to be sexually involved, romantic entanglement was frowned upon. However, the two traveled all over together and lived openly as a couple.

One day, the two were on a river, and Antinous fell overboard and drowned. The exact reason isn't known...some suggest it was suicide so that Hadrian wouldn't have to break up with Antinous or risk losing the empire, some say it was murder to return Hadrian to Rome, others say it was just an accident.

Whatever it was, Hadrian was inconsolable. Near where he lost Antinous, he founded a city called Antinopolis, and built so many statues and shrines of him that he became worshipped as a god by many throughout the empire.

[Chris]

Did anyone else get a Lit Fic vibe from at least the earlier part of the book? In the First Impressions thread, others described the book as a romance, but I thought it was just a focus on the mundane details of everyday life. Put that together with characters that reset with every chapter, and it's hard to connect with the story. Without solid characters and/or an immersive plot, theme and world-building are rarely enough to make a good reading experience.

I was reminded a little of Station Eleven, which also had some Lit Fic sensibilities - though I liked Station Eleven much more than Elysium. The two books came out at roughly the same time so neither was likely to have influenced the other.

What did you guys think of the commentary on race? "I'll Fly Away" is a much covered gospel song. At least some of the people of color who survive the dust develop wings. Then they build a spaceship to fly away from Earth.

There isn't much interaction with White people, other than the one hostile man who loses his temper. The aliens are colonizers, and they mostly wreak impersonal devastation from a distance. The outcast alien scientist seems to be a stand-in for White liberals - sympathetic to POC but clueless in many ways and condescending.

[Paul]

I appreciate what the author tried to do here. Knowing this was her debut novel makes a lot of my issues a bit better, but it doesn't help me like the novel.

Towards the end, there's a lot of clarifying what was really happening in earlier chapters. For instance the group of human prisoners being punished by the aliens explained the end of chapter 4 with the light keepers getting punished. I thought when those overlays happened, they were done well.

The author also seemed to be trying to tackle some social misconceptions. I thought the gender fluidity of the characters in the beginning was pretty good since it seemed to say that people don't need to be defined by their gender and sexual orientation.

Chris said: "There isn't much interaction with White people, other than the one hostile man who loses his temper. The aliens are colonizers, and they mostly wreak impersonal devastation from a distance. The outcast alien scientist seems to be a stand-in for White liberals - sympathetic to POC but clueless in many ways and condescending.'

I didn't fully grasp this during my read, but I agree with you after consideration.

Allison wrote: "The first few iterations really upset me (I don't like stories where romantic love is the A plot, in general)..."

This is a good way of saying it. The beginning was not "romantic" in totality, but the tension between romantic partners was the "A plot". I was ready for a story about an AI and aliens, but got none of that in the first three chapters. I don't think an error message and some binary suddenly makes the beginning a sci-fi.

Thankfully, in each chapter the story transitioned a bit more towards a B plot of a society collapsing. Around Chapter 12, the B plot had mostly taken over and I was starting to enjoy it a lot more. But then the "AI" seemed shoe horned in the last few chapters. The AI was a stretch to me, as I never felt like the narrator or the program in the sky was doing anything besides what it was programmed to do. It didn't have a POV until the last chapter, and even that felt like a projection of the main character.

[Anthony]

I’m really the outlier on this one and on The Way of Kings, it seems.

“Lit Fic” is not a negative connotation to me, if it’s well done. Even in my genre reading, I gravitate toward writing that is subtle, human, clear, and emotionally resonant, which the best Lit Fic embodies. And that’s how I experienced the actual text itself. I felt that Bissett trusted us, her readers, and never felt the need to explain things too much, or lay on any emotional moment too thickly.

Again, I agree that the connective tissue that tied it all together wasn’t as sound as I think she meant it to be, but when the experience of taking in each scene was as seamless and distinctive as I experienced it, that balanced out the questions I had about the hows and whys of it all.

I’m coming to find that the hows and whys of a plot matter way less to me than the emotional-intellectual-aesthetic *feelings* I get from a book. It’s great when everything hangs together in a complete package, when the beauty of the writing *and* the complexity of the form *and* the profundity of the content all add up to a perfect reading experience for me (I’m looking at you, N.K. Jemisin, Ursula K. Le Guin, Connie Willis, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robin Hobb), but if I had to sacrifice any of those aspects of a book, I’d much rather read something that’s messily structured or plotted but subtly and evocatively written than something that has shoddily or lazily crafted prose but a really throughly conceived world and a super complex plot.

So this book carried me along on the strength of its sentence structure, its pacing of individual scenes and moments, and its clear-eyed, humane approach to its many characters.

I also concede that it’s not for everyone.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

And I will agree that I felt each "episode" was a very unique reading experience that seemed to convey something poignant that trenscended the mere scene that was framed.

I think though for me I needed either more of the allegory or more messaging from the AI itself to feel it resonate. I didn't feel the loss--I best liked the temple, brothers, and bird-mutant aspects of the book, the ones that felt completely unrelated to the story as it was actually unfolding (or as it originally unfolded).

I think, too, having read The Mere Wife really spoiled me for episodic, untrustworthy narration, so once I realized what we were going for, I was underwhelmed.

Chris, great points about the race aspect! Another interesting thing to me about the nods to the race of those in the city was that it felt sort of like a reflection on the genocide/eugenics we see in a lot of genre works. This is turning that trope on its head and sort of gently pointing out how uncomfortable it is to be left out, which I found interesting.

[Chris]

I wasn't impressed by the prose. It wasn't bad, but it didn't leap out at me either. Before this, I had just read Best Served Cold so I couldn't help comparing.

Elysium opening:

They left that basement and walked uptown in the dimness of daybreak. The streets were a deserted mess. Cars stopped in traffic with no one in them. Newspapers and trash flying around. Smashed windows on the storefronts. And silence. Their footfalls echoed off the tall buildings. Behind the gray clouds it was speckly, like a monitor screen gone wrong. A small green dot hovered up there. Adrian watched it for a while as they walked until it blipped out of existence.

Best Served Cold opening:

The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. It leaked out of the east and stained the dark sky red, marked the scraps of cloud with stolen gold. Underneath it the road twisted up the mountainside towards the fortress of Fontezarmo—a cluster of sharp towers, ash-black against the wounded heavens. The sunrise was red, black and gold.

The colours of their profession.

[Anna]

I had no idea what this book was going to be about. I considered it for the mod poll many times, but always decided against it at the last minute. I was so surprised when it won, the blurb didn't really give (me) a good idea of what it was going to be about, I was sure people would go for Marge Piercy. So when the poll ended, I decided to read it immediately.

This is the part where the audio worked in a positive way, I listened to the first story, and then my brain had a woah moment when it wasn't sure if I'd heard the names correctly in the next one. It felt like my brain was throwing error messages just like the program, so that part worked perfectly for me. I enjoyed the weird structure very much, except how the computer voice was narrated, and I didn't want to stop listening. I was cooking, and I think I stood there with a knife in my hand (obviously, we know I'm stabby) just listening to what was going to unfold next, not remembering to chop anything. The little stories were enough for me, I would've been happy if it was just that and then an abrupt end with no reason behind it at all.

I didn't think it was a romance at all, just love in many forms. There's a difference. I don't love reading about sexy times, but it wasn't too much for me, and all the different combos were fascinating to me. Maybe it was the right time for me to read it, maybe my reading taste is weird, I have no idea! I really liked it, and I'm definitely going to read the next one in this world when it comes out. It's not on GR yet, but I think I saw a 2020 pub date. Rated 3.5 and rounded up on GR because I did enjoy it, and because it's a debut.

I completely understand why people wouldn't love this, but I have to say I was very surprised to see so many people DNFing it, or wanting to. I'm starting to seriously question my personal taste vs. the collective group taste, when almost everyone loved last month's SF pick and I think it shouldn't be allowed to exist. I'm happy at least a couple of other people liked this one!

[Kristin B.]

I mentioned I'm not good at picking out deeper meanings, right? I really hadn't thought about the race thing either. And in thinking back on it, Chris' observations are excellent. Which gives me a greater appreciation for the craftsmanship of the story. Doesn't change how much I enjoyed reading it, but it certainly makes me respect it more.

Normally, I would agree with Anthony that I'll take a beautifully written book over a perfectly plotted one. I just don't think this one was the kind of prose I usually appreciate. I am not a fan of "lit-fic" in general. But I can appreciate it if I like the way it's written. Of course I don't know that I can pinpoint exactly what way that is. It's like when you enjoy a certain painting. I can tell you that I like the whole piece, but not what individual parts of it make it work for me. An art critic I am not, nor ever will I be. :)

[Gabi]

@Anna: hope this helps for your self-consciousness ;) - after having seen that you gave it a high rating, I will pick it up when I'm back home. I already had some outstanding novel-experiences due to your recs.

[Anthony]

I appreciate the thoughtful and respectful manner with which everyone is engaging in this discussion. Personal tastes and preferences are just that — personal — but as we sadly see all too often, it doesn’t stop folks from attacking one another for having such tastes and preferences. This little discussion’s civility and respectful engagement is giving me hope.

[Anna]

Gabi wrote: "@Anna: hope this helps for your self-consciousness ;) - after having seen that you gave it a high rating, I will pick it up when I'm back home."

I didn't mean everyone should read and love this! I probably wouldn't have put it in a poll if I'd read it first. I'm just thinking that maybe my taste at this time isn't matching what most people in the group want to read. Tastes change, moods change, and maybe I'm in a weird place right now. It's not only group books actually, I've also had some major disappointments with books I should've loved based on other people's reviews. It's a little strange, but nothing wrong with it, I'm happy with my reading taste! I just have to figure out what it is all over again :D

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I do love how thoughtful this group tends to be! It means we all get something out of a book, regardless of whether or not it's something we really enjoyed as an art form!

Seriously though, what are some ideas as to what the elk and the owl are? All I can think of are sort of random Greek symbols but it really felt much more consistent than that. Someone (YouKneeK?) suggested that maybe it was the zoo that had gone wild, and that the AI was trying to insert the weird animals it saw into the story.

[Kristin B.]

Allison wrote: "Seriously though, what are some ideas as to what the elk and the owl are? All I can think of are sort of random Greek symbols but it really felt much more consistent than that. Someone (YouKneeK?) suggested that maybe it was the zoo that had gone wild, and that the AI was trying to insert the weird animals it saw into the story.
."

I wonder if there was a connection with the creature with antlers and the winged humans? The two legged humanoid creature with antlers seemed menacing, but the elk always seemed peaceful and majestic. The owl was depicted as a hunter. Whereas the people with wings (mutated or built) were generally kind, or at least not purposefully malevolent.

(I'm really just grasping at straws. Hoping that some bit of my rambling will trigger a thought for someone else.)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Kristin B. wrote: "Allison wrote: "Seriously though, what are some ideas as to what the elk and the owl are? All I can think of are sort of random Greek symbols but it really felt much more consistent than that. Some..."

These are good thoughts!

[Jemppu]

Gabi wrote: "... I will pick it up when I'm back home ..."

Joy! I was hoping you would.

[YouKneeK]

1. What did you think of the writing?
I really enjoyed it. It caught my interest from the start. I was interested by the very early clues, before the first chapter even started and then in the middle of chapter 1, that we might be in some kind of a computer program. I was hooked at the “huh?” moment at the beginning of chapter 2 when everything is different and yet still the same and I realized the program glitches were changing subtle things about the characters.

2. What did you think of the chapter/glitch structure?
As noted above, that was what initially caught my interest. I can see why people would consider this repetitive and/or predictable. It was essentially the same story in each cycle, especially if you define the story by the character relationships – Adrian/Adrianne loves Antoine/Antoinette deeply, but something happens to tear Antoine/Antoinette away. This is something that should have annoyed me, because I normally dislike both repetition and predictability. And yet it didn’t. I liked looking for the similarities and differences between each story, and I liked looking for the clues about what was really going on. Even though it was obvious from the beginning that there was some sort of a glitchy program involved, there were still many questions about how and why the program was created that were slowly answered.

3. What do you think some of the recurring symbols meant?
I’m with Kristin on this one, I’m not good at catching symbolism and I tend to look for more tangible explanations. So the elk, as Allison alluded to, I never saw anything deeper in that than the fact that we were told elk had escaped from a zoo during the construction of the underground area after the attack and so maybe they were still running around when the scenery was being recorded for the simulation. The owl, I have no idea. I guess there’s kind of a theme of flight in the book but, for a more tangible explanation, there’s a point where Antoine says, in reference to Adrian, “He likes owls.” So maybe Adrian just put them in the program because he liked them.

On the other hand, I can offer up one symbol of sorts that was nice and definite and tangible. I don’t think many people will be terribly interested in it, but maybe my fellow Computer Science people will be moderately amused if they didn’t already catch it themselves. :) The binary number 10110001 is repeated throughout the book several times, with the implication that this is some sort of reference to the sector where Adrian/Adrianne is stored in the program. This converts to 177 in decimal. The number 177 is used in the book three times – once it’s a room # where Adrianne meets Antoine. Another time it’s the number that appears when Adrian swipes an identification card. The third time is when the alien executes the command “execute defrag 177”. My edition said the book had 190 pages. If she could have crammed the story into 177 pages, that would have made my geeky side so very happy. :)

4. What do you think the real ending was?
Humanity has been wiped out, with the exception of the ones who escaped the planet, and the aliens responsible for wiping out humanity have colonized Earth. A simulation was created by Adrian/Adrianne to tell others about humanity and warn them what happened to them. Many years later, most of the aliens who colonized earth don’t even know how the planet was conquered. One of the aliens finds the simulation and is shocked to learn the truth. Eventually the alien makes direct contact with the simulation's artificial intelligence, modeled on its creator. The real Adrian/Adrianne didn’t intend the program to be seen by the aliens who destroyed them, so the AI shuts down the simulation. However, there’s no indication that it erased or otherwise destroyed the program so it seems like the alien could just start it back up again.

5. What worked or did not work for you?
For the most part, it all worked for me. I would have liked a bit more detail about the simulation itself and how it was created. I also thought shutting the program down at the end wasn’t terribly effective if the intent was to make sure the aliens could never access the info again. The alien was apparently writing and executing small programs in the OS, so I’m sure it could figure out how to restart the program…

I enjoyed the way not only the genders but also the relationships were transitory. They weren’t always lovers, sometimes they were siblings or parent/child. The point was that Adrian/Adrianne loved Antoine/Antoinette very strongly, regardless of their genders or ages or relationships.

[YouKneeK]

Because the above wall of text just wasn’t long enough…

One of the things I found unrealistic in the story but forgot to mention in my post above, was how unrealistic it is (from a real-world computing perspective) that the glitches would be so non-glitchy. For example, not only were the character genders changed, but all the gender-based activities (including the more explicit sex scenes) happened the way you would expect. The glitches weren’t something completely weird like a person walking around with a hole in their stomach, or the elk walking on its antlers. When programs glitch, they don’t always make sense, and they don’t usually modify other parts of the program to align with their glitches…

But I was thinking, maybe the simulation was designed so that Adrian/Adrianne would appear to be male or female based on the gender of the person viewing the simulation. Sort of like how you create a character to represent you in a video game and you’re often able to choose its gender. So the program was set to handle different gender combos, and it was the decision point itself (which genders to use) that was glitching, causing the genders to fluctuate. The creator probably couldn’t have accounted for potentially alien genders, so that in itself could have caused problems due to the alien viewing the simulation.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

YouKneeK, I would have really loved the weird of actually glitchy things! Or, at least in theory. I also like your idea about the genders programmed to be something the viewer would respond to. That'd be a neat twist. Headcanon accepted!

[Anna]

Yes, I also really like that idea about the genders and relationships being determined by the end user!

[Eduardo]

In terms of the writing, I enjoyed the use of language, I think it was nicely done.

I also really like the setting and the world building in this book.

The weird narration and structure were not for me. Not only is it confusing, but it's hard for one to care about characters if they keep changing. And I'm not talking about gender or relationships here, but even their back stories. For instance, Adrianne was at a point remembering how she was abandoned by her mom at the convent, and then at some other point she's reminiscing about having a good time with both her parents. At that point, that's a different Adrianne, it's another character, and whatever attachment I had to her is very hard to keep.

YouKneeK that's pretty cool with the 177 thing. I did translate the number, but didn't make anything of it.

Mainly because of the narrative structure I didn't enjoy this book, except for maybe at the very end. I liked the setting and the sci-fi concepts in it (solar powered software running in the atmosphere, etc). But the narrative structure made it so that I didn't really enjoy it as much as I could have.

[Oleksandr]

YouKneeK wrote: "One of the things I found unrealistic in the story but forgot to mention in my post above, was how unrealistic it is (from a real-world computing perspective) that the glitches would be so non-glitchy. For example, not only were the character genders changed, but all the gender-based activities (including the more explicit sex scenes) happened the way you would expect.."

I saw it as just two names (in feminine/masculine forms) attached to different people's memories. So it is a name change, not gender change. Like all books in your library getting a title Elysium, but unchanged contents within.

[Oleksandr]

I was initially interested in a story and the protagonists' shifts was a nice idea even if movement from lovers to brothers and parent-offspring may hint on both pedophilia and incest, but it is no news for SF and it was done fine.

What started to put me off is a SF part: making a giant underground city? with what resources in hand? and on average much wealthier (and more politically powerful) whites were unable to do it? Then comes space ship... it seems that copying it wasn't a problem. Then space faring aliens, who primitively fight with people in close combat (with wings as blades)... ten a prison camp and whippings! Hey, those aliens made space ships and dusted Earth! And now they are so primitive...

[Joseph]

The concept behind Elysium was intriguing. The difficulty, and why parts of it didn’t work for me, was because the reader had to hang in there until the bitter end to understand the entire book. I have read books with big reveals, or certain elements that were not clear until the end, but not the entire plot of the book. And I’m still not sure, after reading the end a few times, if I’ve gotten it right.

The framework is cool (and that’s what kept me reading): a computer keeps rewriting the story of Adrian/Adrienne and Antoine/Antoinette. Their characters are iso fluid that their sex, age and loving/romantic/sexual relationship changes constantly. This is disturbing at times, since they go from father and son to lovers to siblings to lovers again. So why is this?

We learn at the end, the whole thing has been a computer simulation, with the intent of the aliens to study (now extinct) humanity. But again, why?

This is not clearly explained, but I think it is to understand LOVE. This is not said overtly to my reading, but why would an alien computer mix up the sexes so frequently if it had no idea of the concept of human LOVE.

Now this is really a great vehicle to explore the complexity of human LOVE, and I hope the author intended this. But please give us a clue earlier on, before the last 10-20 pages. And even then, I am still not sure this was the point. Anyone else think this was alien civilizations mucking around with a human computer simulation to understand the concept of LOVE?

[Oleksandr]

Joseph wrote: "This is not clearly explained, but I think it is to understand LOVE. ."

It is an interesting and valid theory. However, together with constant shifts between "modes" of love, it seems that the aliens are stuck with English or another language that doesn't differentiate between romantic/sexual eros and parental/sibling storge (I don't even start on agape, philia and xenia)

[YouKneeK]

(Note: Even though I’m skeptical whether we ever knew the true names and genders of the “real” people, I’m going to simplify my typing and go with Adrianne and Antoine. Adrianne is the form she was in at the end when the alien communicated directly with the AI, and she made reference to Antoine.)

Oleksandr wrote: "I saw it as just two names (in feminine/masculine forms) attached to different people's memories. So it is a name change, not gender change."

That interpretation makes sense, and it’s one I considered before we were told that Adrianne was used as the template for the simulation. Whether accurate or not, that was when I changed my mind and believed the main character of each story was based on a real Adrianne. Her love for Antoine led to him also being prominent in all the stories, similar to how Hadrian made so many things in the image of Antinous after he drowned.

I think you make good points about the giant underground city and the spaceships they created. Their technology level could have been much more clearly defined. My initial impression was that humanity wasn’t that technologically advanced when the aliens invaded, based on how poorly they were able to protect themselves. But if that’s the case, it does seem unrealistic that they managed to accomplish what they did, not to mention obtain the resources needed for it, in a relatively short time period. I'm not sure wealth had much to do with it though. I think by that time it was a free-for-all, and it was just a matter of who was healthiest and strong enough to take what they wanted and to protect the territory and resources they took.

Joseph wrote: "We learn at the end, the whole thing has been a computer simulation, with the intent of the aliens to study (now extinct) humanity. But again, why?”

For me, this part became clear at the 60% mark (chapter 13). We were told the humans were creating a message they could broadcast to warn others about what the aliens had done to them. Then they went on to say they were building a “human interface program” and that they wanted Adrianne to be the template. So the simulation was created by the humans and was naively not intended to be seen by the aliens who destroyed them but by friendlier aliens who they hoped would learn about humanity and also be warned about the evil aliens.

I knew we were in a computer program of some sort from the beginning due to all the error messages and such, but that 60% mark was when I finally understood why and how the simulation was created. From there, I thought everything that came after made increasingly more sense.

I think the author was exploring the concept of love and possibly also loss, but I’m not as sure if that was the characters’ intent. It may have been, since they made it such a large part of the simulation and it does seem like an important aspect of humanity that one would want aliens to know about. On the other hand, it may simply have been the result of using Adrianne as a template. If the “scans” they took also included her thought patterns, her obsession with Antoine and her grief over losing him would surely have had an influence.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Thank you for that excellent summary, YouKneeK!

I agree that I think by the time the city got to the point it could support people, the racial divide was about health, not wealth. As I said, I also think it was the author making it explicit that there was a cataclysm and that the survivors were not white, generally, subverting the color homogeneity so common in genre fiction.

I think the AI part was both my least and most favorite--we finally got forward motion and some plot in that part of the book, but also as we've mentioned, there are a looot of holes. So it feels both like the meat and the lie of the story.

[Oleksandr]

YouKneeK wrote: "Their technology level could have been much more clearly defined. My initial impression was that humanity wasn’t that technologically advanced when the aliens invaded, based on how poorly they were able to protect themselves."

I decided that their world is roughly equal to our modern world, in a city similar to New York. the cars referenced in the story I guess have combustion engines (they roar IIRC), they use generators during light out - so the infrastructure is comparable to our present

[Lesley]

I first want to say that I always appreciate reading everyone’s comments on the group reads as it really deepens my understanding of the book.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, including the structure with the glitches and the repeating storylines, using a central relationship to explore themes of love, loss and humanity in what would otherwise be a rote alien invasion story. I liked the changing relationship and genders and situations. I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing; I too found it unpolished at times, but what the author was trying to do with the narrative captured my interest enough to keep going. I look forward to reading future work by her.

My one complaint is with the part where Adrienne wakes up in a psychiatric ward, not knowing which reality is “real.” This felt like a hugely unoriginal trope to me, and somewhat unnecessary to move the plot forward. It was especially jarring after the more creative scenes where she’s in the cloister in some sort of dystopian future US. I also wasn’t a fan of some of the racial stereotypes, like Hector and the Korean convenience store owner, but that may have been because the audiobook narrator was particularly overzealous in her portrayal of these characters. If I had read the text without the strong accents she used, I don’t know that I would have had the same reaction.

Also, I mentioned this in one of my status updates, but from now on whenever I see an elk or an owl (which is not an uncommon occurrence where I live, and yes, I live in the middle of the woods), I will forever wonder about their symbolism in this book.

[Melani]

I finished last night, and I'm not sure? I think it's an interesting way to tell a story, but I think there was just a little too much time spent on some of the earlier glitches that didn't really contribute to the main (alien invasion) story, and didn't really do much with the love story either.

I do agree about the racial stereotypes. I didn't get it so much with the Korean convenience store owner, but there were times I winced at how Hector's dialogue was written (I read it, so I can't blame an overzealous narrator). To be fair, I find it annoying when authors write out accents in general.

[Lesley]

@Melani Good to know it wasn’t just the narrator in Hector’s case, though this makes it even harder for me to agree with the author’s characterization choices.

The thing that also got me about the Kim character is that he wasn’t portrayed with an accent later in the narration. So it seemed like there was a deliberate choice to give him an accent when he was the stereotypical Asian store owner, but not when he appeared as Adrian/Adrienne’s colleague and friend later, which is somewhat exasperating and offensive.

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

I have to admit I was one of the fans. I completely agree with all of the issues with writing, structure and pacing but none of it bothered me. I enjoyed every small bit of knowledge each chapter added even if it wasn't consistent I loved (and was sad with) the sad AI at the end.

Definitely it was a first novel and there were some obvious things to improve but as I said in my review, I will definitely read something else by Brissett which is sort of the point.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I'd love to hear more from folks who loved it! What were the common threads you saw, what was the resolution you got or the fundamental question it posed to you? In other words, what made it all work together for you?

[Leq]

What I like about this group is that it "forces" me to go outside my comfort zone, and also helps me understand my taste in relation to other tastes (outside the echo chamber, at least a little bit).

While reading Elysium I was able to better understand my weaknesses as a reader - I need a captivating (for me) plot and/or a captivating (for me) world.

I gave up reading it after about a 1/3, but I was happy to find here your interpretation of what the author intended, and the things that delighted you. And while I might not find the motivation to finish the book, I definitely enjoyed your comments and will continue to read them - to enjoy the story at least in a Reader's Digest way :-) :-). Thank you!

[Anthony]

@Leq what a thoughtful and generous-of-spirit way to talk about your approach to something that didn’t work for you. Thank you for that!

[Valerie]

The concept of the glitch structure was interesting. I really, really loved the concept. I wanted to love how it played out. Alas, that was not to be. However, I will take the blame for this. So far, I've only successfully like one book with a nesting story format, though I really like the concept.

I loved the diversity represented among the life fragments. I wish I could say that bought into any of the story bits and how they were assembled and reassembled. Some of you have made great points on this topic, for example they didn't feel natural in how AI might glitch and WTF with the elk and owls?

Overall, I was bored and disengaged through most of the book.

[Gabi]

I was shying away from this book when it came up as BotM, cause I read AI and I'm usually not in the mood for AI stories. But I was proven wrong to ban this story.
I Just finished listening to it and there aren't many books where I felt so deeply immersed, so moved and so fascinated. This story about love and loss in ever new ways was written in such a poetic and sure prose that I'm awed.
The layer upon layer of different realities was so much to my taste. The first part when I had no idea what really was going on was an all-the-stars read for me.
I was dissappointed to see that Brissett didn't write another novel. I would love to read more by her (have to have a look at the short stories).

This was one of those little, bright jewels off the mainstream I live for (it was an Anna rec ... wasn't it?)

ETA: Just read that she teaches writing. That shows.

[Anna]

There is a sequel to this coming out! I can’t remember details, but it might be 2020.

[Gabi]

Anna wrote: "There is a sequel to this coming out! I can’t remember details, but it might be 2020."

I've read about a book in her bio, but I couldn't find a mentioning anywhere else.

ETA: I was just skimming through the comments and saw that I already meant to read it half a year ago - and apparently forgot all about it. How embarrassing!

[Anna]

OK I'm on my laptop now, here is the little we know about the sequel:

http://www.jennbrissett.com/page/bibl...

And there'll be a third one, too:

http://www.jennbrissett.com/page/bibl...

[Kaa]

Reading everyone else's comments has definitely helped me to understand some of the aspects of the story a bit more, but honestly I still feel a little lost as to what the author was actually trying to do. I thought the approach was fascinating, loved the repetition, and felt that there were the bones of some great ideas, but I think the story failed to fully pull it all together. The parallels weren't always strong enough, and I felt like it needed a stronger unifying thread. However, my biggest complaints were about more specific things. Like Allison, I found it upsetting that as the book went along, it felt like the gay couple part of the original story was removed. Even when it was present, though, I found some of the gay (and especially trans) portrayals to be really stereotyped. The way the narrator voiced Hector was beyond infuriating sometimes, although the electronic beeps didn't bother me nearly as much as most other listeners. All in all, glad I went back and finished it, but I felt that the book could have used more work in quite a few areas.