"The Outside" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Okay! Let's talk about our scifi book of the month!

In case you'd like some starter questions:

1. What did you think of the horror/science blend?
2. What did you like or not like about the world?
3. What of Lovecraft did you see or were you expecting?
4. Overall thoughts?

[Gabi]

Ah, good! Now I can ask. Is 'ansible' an existing expression? Or did the author nick it? I read this in LeGuin's Hainish Cycle and couldn't find a translation in my dictionaries, so I thought it was one of her invented words.

ETA: can't say anything about the Lovecraftian elements. If I ever read him, of which I'm not sure, it has been over 30 years ago.

I'm listening to it the second time in a row now, cause I couldn't concentrate on the story first time around. Concentration works a lot better this time, fortunately, but I don't really connect with the story. What I like though is the description of the neuro atypical characters. It feels very relatable to me.

[Travis]

I'm not a horror fan but was willing to go with it. But then I couldn't quite figure out how those parts fit in with the plot. For instance, why were the Gone stabbing themselves?

After finishing the novel, I also need a bit of help figuring out what "the outside" is meant to be. Is it sort of like the force but with some sort of malignant agency? At first I thought it was a sort of thought experiment for a realm untouched by things like ideology, but then the ending left me scratching my head.

[Anna]

Gabi wrote: "Ah, good! Now I can ask. Is 'ansible' an existing expression? Or did the author nick it? I read this in LeGuin's Hainish Cycle and couldn't find a translation in my dictionaries, so I thought it wa..."

Yes, UKLG came up with it, but loads of authors have used it since:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible

[Anna]

I was looking forward to this so much, I had to wait until September 1st to start it, and it was hard! And then I felt no connection to it at all. About a week after I finished it I no longer remembered anything about it. So I can't talk much about the book, I just wanted to say that Gabi, I completely understand why you didn't feel it, I didn't either! And it's fine, I'm not going to reread it, it just wasn't for me :/

[Gabi]

Thank you so much for the ansible explanation, Anna! How cool! It didn't even cross my mind to ask the internet in general when I couldn't find it in the dictionary.

[Kristjan]

Allison wrote:
1. What did you think of the horror/science blend?

Meh ...

The science was decent over all; though I did have some nits to pick; for example, any type of advanced electronics with vacuum tubes simply doesn't work and getting it wrong was jarring for me. Perhaps this was to give it a quasi steam-punk feel (or some sort of down tech feel), but it just didn't work for me. The portals were pretty standard science fantasy, so I could accept those a little easier. The inclusion of time dilation with a warp drive was really awesome (most Sci-Fi ignores this problem).

The horror seemed to bit forced, trying to weave in the standard Lovecraft tropes. This also did not work for me; so I took it into an entirely different direction. I took more of an inverse view of the world than perhaps was intended, but when I viewed the AI dieties as more of an artificial or false orthodoxy, the 'Outside' became more of an effort of the universe to self-correct. The 'stabbing' was less of a blood sacrifice and more of a means to 'feel' connected to the Outside (IIRC the pain was how Yashira was able to connect to it without an 'Alter'). This whole aspect became more of a meta-physical exporation to me instead of the intended horror. It allowed me to explore extensions on the world building that were quite fascinating to me.

[Travis]

Kristjan wrote: "the 'Outside' became more of an effort of the universe to self-correct"

That really helps me think about it differently. Super useful. Thanks.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Self-mutilation is one of those signs of madness and body horror that seem to go with the territory of a lot of Lovecraft-inspired horror. I agree that pain seems to be one way to find the Outside, and also that there's something about the sense of ritual that connects them together (cults being another big Lovecraft thing) so they have pain, they have shared experience, and that helps them contact the Outside and see the great pattern that encompasses all of them.

[Kristjan]

Allison wrote:
2. What did you like or not like about the world?..."

"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer"
- Voltaire

Nit picks aside ... I did really like the world building here.

Imagine if you will, a world where humanity has come to depend upon science and technology as the ultimate arbiter of 'life, the universe and everything.' Given the relevant facts, outcomes are now predictable instead of mysterious or magical; but tracking all of these data points has always been difficult for people to do without help, so we build super computers to do that for us...

"Old Humans had been desperate for the attention of something higher than themselves."
- Ada Hoffmann

... and so we gave these super computers agency and turned them lose; but "the serpent deceived me, and I ate." Now the former slave is the master and every bit as cruel and heartless as the Old gods they replaced ... with cyborg avatars/angels to protect and enforce the new order. Heresy is dangerous, and orthodoxy is enforced by a new and implacable inquisition. And because the new gods were dependent upon humans to survive ... to grow ... they carefully tended their garden so that only the 'right souls' were taken.

"Universal acceptance can exist, I think, only as a failure of the imagination."
- Ada Hoffmann

But the new [tech] gods have a very serious flaw. They lack the ability to imagine something greater than themselves, and into this blind spot comes the "Godless Outside" to take advantage of their hubris.

So ... the players ...

The Old gods ... Hoffmann clearly discards any religion that is contemporary or earlier to the reader as irrational. She comes across a little preachy here and doesn't do a very good a job describing why such beliefs were abandoned other than a brief hint that they just didn't work (and a brief tilt saying they were blood thirsty). Disappointing, but I'll give her a pass on that since she manages to appropriate nearly all of the concepts, rituals, et. al. for her new AI gods.

The New gods ... other than the fact that they are super computer based AI programs with Skynet self awareness, they are plugged directly into a society that could have come straight out of virtually any angels and demonology treatise ... except that they are not so clearly the good guys. In fact ... good and evil are strangely absent in this story; instead we have more of an order vs chaos conflict ... which historically predates the dominant idea of a good vs evil struggle now commonly found with Judeo-Christian eschatology.

The Outside ... Entropy, Chaos, Tiamat, et. al. The creative [and destructive] force within the universe personified. Set against the order of the New gods, the Outside is something of an indifferent antagonist that undermines Order just by its very nature (Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly).

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Wow!!! That is an excellent summary and analysis of that aspect of the book, Kristjan! Very well thought out. I really like the idea of the Outside's "rules" being simply too complicated for the closest approximation to true AI we could make, and your thoughts on this being more about order v. chaos than good v. evil.

I thought the gods were so very cool. Superficially, I wanted them to be creepier. I was surprised that Yasira back-talked to them, these beings I imagined with lights flashing in their brains that would light up their eyes from within--not windows to the soul, but the machinery of the gods.

I wanted more of that ambiance, personally. The preachiness of the bad old gods vs the new rational ones is something I've seen so often, I was hoping for a bit more nuance there as well.

[Travis]

Kristjan wrote: "Allison wrote:
2. What did you like or not like about the world?..."

"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer"
- Voltaire

Nit picks aside ... I did really like the world building here..."

Wow. That one comment makes me think rethink the whole book!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

There's a conversation about the character's autism in the spoiler free thread that I thought I'd help migrate back over here.

So, to set the tone, the author has ASD and seems to have written a character she identifies with. This certainly doesn't mean that she's written a universally resonant account of living with autism, but it does necessarily mean she knows what *her* experience is, and it's not really something we can dispute lol.

I personally liked that while autism was important to the character, it wasn't really important to the story. This isn't a story about living with autism, or the super powers you get, or the struggle of it. It's treated like any other trait someone might have--something to consider, something the person can't forget about themselves, but not limiting, "inspirational" or used to excuse or explain anything in the story. It's not easy to make a character who is different from the majority without falling a little into the desire to write about how their differences makes them special (or distasteful depending), and I think this book did an overall good job of keeping it realistic without falling into trope-ism.

I know some folks say that they feel that this character may not be on an extreme end of the spectrum, which I suppose they were expecting, but I would gently suggest that expecting everyone with a certain disorder or condition to act a certain way comes off across a bit dismissive, which can be hurtful, and I'd also like to remind people that while we are discussing a character, I can guarantee you that people reading this right now either live with ASD or love someone who does, so please be careful!

[Gabi]

I agree with you, Allison. I experienced the description as genuine. I only would have loved that she hadn't so often emphasized the 'atypical' condition. The behavior patterns and actions of the two characters spoke for themselves and felt very authentic.

[Kristjan]

Allison wrote: "I personally liked that while autism was important to the character, it wasn't really important to the story...."

I am conflicted. On one hand, one of the characteristic of Lovecraft horror is the unreliability of the narrator (or in this case the principle protagonist). Frequently this is due to some form of addiction or mind altering encounter with some horror or other formative experience. I found several instances within the story where Hoffmann hints that only the neuro-atypical can truly understand the Outside, possibly because they are already considered broken in some fashion (both Yashira and her mentor are acutely aware of their presumed limitations with respect to social norms).

He had suspected that madness was not merely a side-effect of understanding Outside: it was the key to doing so. If Outside defied all the usual rules of reality, and sane people’s minds were well-adapted to working with reality, then that sanity could only be a hindrance. The gone people and their unusual abilities supported this theory.
- Ada Hoffmann as Akavi

On the other hand ... this brings up a debate on what is truly broken. Both Eva and Yashira appear to have difficulty with emotional and social cues; however, Yashira appears to at least have some ability to cognitively recognize what the appropriate response should be in many situations where Eva doesn't. IAW Yashira can usually fit in with everybody else.

I could say that it is a miracle she functions and connects to the world so well, but I think it is really the reverse: she is so connected, so in tune with what is around her that she cannot help but connect in heretical ways too. It is a pity, then, that we will need to beat all of that out of her.
- Ada Hoffmann reflections on Evianna

One of the therapies that I have encountered for children on the spectrum is coaching them within play groups so that they can recognize (rationally instead of emotionally) and practice the more 'expected' responses in a given social situation ... this reduces conflict that can arise when 'reading' others incorrectly and then quickly escalates beyond their ability to manage what is happening.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

And it sounds like Yasira had more formal behavioral therapy while Evianna was essentially tortured and then left without therapy, so it would make sense that even if they had the exact same presentation of ASD, they would have severely different outcomes.

I'm not sure I agree that only people who are neuro-atypical can understand the Outside in this story. Certainly the central two are neuro-atypical but I'm not sure that we know that all heretics had ASD, or that all the gone people had ASD etc. That would certainly make it feel more trope-y than it did as I read it.

[Kristjan]

Allison wrote: "Certainly the central two are neuro-atypical but I'm not sure that we know that all heretics had ASD, or that all the gone people had ASD etc..."

I don't think that they did ... which is why they are presented as mad (or dysfunctional) while Yashira and Evianna were still able to function afterward.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Ahh I see, so are you wondering if being autistic "saved" them from madness, thereby inserting the trope? I could see it that way, if so, though that's not how I read it.

Any others have thoughts on that as well?

[Kristjan]

Allison wrote: "Ahh I see, so are you wondering if being autistic "saved" them from madness, thereby inserting the trope? I could see it that way, if so, though that's not how I read it. ..."

Exactly

[Kristjan]

Allison wrote: "3. What of Lovecraft did you see or were you expecting?..."


To shake off the maddening and wearying limitations of time and space and natural law—to be linked with the vast outside—to come close to the nighted and abysmal secrets of the infinite and the ultimate—surely such a thing was worth the risk of one’s life, soul, and sanity!

- HP Lovecraft in The Whisperer in Darkness (1931)

Perhaps the keystone to any true derivative of Lovecraftian horror is the concept of 'Outside' ... which is the title reference of Hoffmann's story and deserves to be front and center to any comparative examination. A cardinal point to this trope is the idea that the 'Outside' is a vast, incomprehensible cosmic truth that is indifferent to the petty concerns of human reality, which is itself merely an illusion (Lies) that we construct to protect of own sanity. Inevitably this ‘truth’ will intrude upon our shared delusion through indescribable dreamscapes, unknowable entities and/or alternative dimensions. The struggle by characters to realign their perceptions (which form their reality) with these encounters frequently pushes them toward madness.

In Yasira’s dream, she was trying, but the papers did not have proper words in them. Letters crawled across the page and danced with each other. […] This one was an ancient-looking tome that took up the whole desk. There was no way she could get through this in a day. She opened the cover anyway, making a cloud of noxious dust in the air. This book had no letters at all. When Yasira peered in, she had the feeling of leaning over a bottomless void.

- Ada Hoffmann on Yashira’s dream

Direct encounters with the ‘Outside’ sets up the principle conflict of the story, with Yashira struggling to hold on to her sanity. What I find most interesting in this story is both her apparent success and the reasons behind it. . In a previous comment I provided one potential explanation; but there is another as well … Akavi, the avatar of the Status Quo [Order], provides Yashira with a mantra to reinforce the failing anchors to the orthodox view of reality.

Your body is made of solid matter, Yasira; your body is real. It obeys definite and well-understood physical laws. Even your brain obeys the laws of neuroscience. Your soul, though immaterial, also follows well-understood laws, and interacts with your body and brain in clearly definable ways. Everything is orderly and in its place, and you are in control of yourself.

- Ada Hoffmann as Akavi

Of course … what is a Lovecraft horror story without the requisite “monstrous perversions of geometrical laws attaining the most grotesque extremes of sinister bizarrerie.” Almost by rote we see this when the story moves down onto the planet and explores the chaos created within the areas touched by the ‘Outside.’ This is the part of the trope that just doesn’t work that well for me. Instead of invoking any connection to horror, terror, et. al. … it’s just weird … and somewhat gross.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Zounds! Another excellent, thoughtful response.

But Yasira, even before melding with the outside, is able to withstand it pretty expertly, and also Akavi's influence. She has a strong sense of what is moral/humane that she is able to hold onto even in the face of the gods, and an intellect that can contextualize the impossible. And, she has strong connections to humanity through her friends, family, and lover, which none of the other main characters have.

So, it could be what you say, but the way I read it was that she has all the intellect of Evianna, all the morality of Akavi, and also strong ties to humanity which both ground her and make her sort of entropic herself. (There's a theory that human consciousness is a side effect of a universe that trends towards entropy, for example.)

Therefore she doesn't go towards black or white but a chaotic and still physically bound middle ground, which she achieves with the help of more powers she doesn't quite comprehend, but which doesn't seem to deter her, as with the reactor we start with.

[Dan]

I was inspired by Kristjan's comment, and I'm wondering if the book can be viewed as a metaphor for our modern world and AI and algorithms.

I haven't thought this entirely through, but let's take for example the predictive policing algorithms: you feed them a bunch of crime data, and these algorithms tell you where to have the police patrol in order to most effectively control crime.

And these algorithms, in their own context, work! But the problem is they end up just reinforcing existing cultural biases: poor communities, for various reasons, tend to have lots of arrests; the algorithm sends the police to patrol those communities, and -- huh, what a surprise -- the police make more arrests there. The algorithm is then reinforced to predict even more crime in those neighborhoods.

The problem is the algorithms / AIs are basically just reinforcing existing biases and practices. They are ignorant of the larger context, or of the self-reinforcing nature of their output.

I'm wondering if the gods and angels of this book can be viewed as a metaphor for these algorithms/AIs in our world, and The Outside as representing the larger, harder-to-understand social and historical context that those algorithms and AIs cannot understand.

I don't have this very fleshed out. Anyone have further thoughts?

[Oleksandr]

Great discussion!

I just finished the book and I like to see now facets I haven't even thought about. That's magnificent!

When I just started the book and read the first excerpt from diaries with "everything is a lie" I had an assumption that this is a story of individuals in an artificial/virtual environment. This can help to understand lamp computers (the faster is a virtual machine the more resources are needed to emulate it) the outside (OS, hardware or even real world) time-travel / multiplication, etc.

I haven't read much Lovecraft and before this thread I haven't thought to link the book to either horror genre in general or Lovecraft in particular. I saw quite different influence, much closer to mainstream SF, namely Dune. It has stylistic similarities with large "excerpts" at the start of each chapter, the precognition of the protagonist, his/her uniqueness for the task in hand, limited technology.

What constantly put me off were some thought/actions which took me from immersion into the story. Just one example:

Yasira closed her eyes and imagined the real Tiv showing up in a flying saucer or something and taking her out of here, to safety. Nothing happened.

Erm, we are set in the universe were both galaxy-wide travel and aliens are the reality, but they still a flying saucer idea?!

[Kristjan]

Dan wrote: "...I'm wondering if the gods and angels of this book can be viewed as a metaphor for these algorithms/AIs in our world..."

Absolutely ... it seems like the only way for these AIs/algorithms to change is by "eating" or absorbing the human soul; however, because the selection of these souls is curated by the AIs themselves, you would expect this activity to re-enforce the status quo instead of fostering changes (this is also emphasized by the AIs need to suppress heresy or anything different than the established order). Just like your example of the policing algorithm ... any error or bias would be amplified over time.

[Kristjan]

Oleksandr wrote: "...I saw quite different influence, much closer to mainstream SF, namely Dune. It has stylistic similarities with large 'excerpts' at the start of each chapter, the precognition of the protagonist, his/her uniqueness for the task in hand, limited technology..."

I definatelty felt a quasi-Dune vibe in this story as well; however, there are significant differences to this. In Dune, precognition has a more mystical aspect (accessed through training and drugs) that can be used to guide/shape current events (more like an evaluation to see outcome probablities ... like a navigator). You could actually guess wrong. In The Outside, precognition is more associated with the manipulation of time, giving it more of a predestination feel for me. The limitation was the inability to keep all the details in your mind, so mistakes were more of a factor of confusion than a bad guess.

The Neo-Luddite milieu shared by both also diverges with respect to motivation and method. In Dune, the primary justification is to prevent the emergence of ANY 'thinking machines' [aka AI] that could threaten humanity [again] while in The Outside this was more geared toward preventing any COMPETING AI through a broader prohibition on the supporting hardware. The irony here was just awesome.

[Oleksandr]

Kristjan wrote: "I definatelty felt a quasi-Dune vibe in this story as well; however, there are significant differences to this. "

I fully agree. My point was not that it emulates Dune, but that there are some similarities both in structure and ideas. There are definitely more differences

[Gabi]

The comparison to Dune is an interesting one wouldn't have crossed my mind. Yet it's been a long time since I read Dune.

Olexandr, I too was constantly thrown out of the reading flow. I listened to it a second time now and the inner monologues of Yasira were even more jarring for me this time, especially her thoughts about Tiv. I guess it could have been a very good story if the execution had been differently. In parts it probably is the audio narrator's fault, too. She reads Yasira with quite a childlike voice and her thoughts overly melodramatic which intensified the distanced feeling. I much more liked the angels' POVs.

[Kristjan]

Oleksandr wrote: "My point was not that it emulates Dune, but that there are some similarities both in structure and ideas. There are definitely more differences ..."

Oh Aye ... I just couldn't resist the opportunity to compare and contrast that your comment gave me :-) ... Dune is on my top-ten book shelf and The Outside was an early contender for a perfect 5 star score. Unfortunately after thinking more on the story, I realised that most of my enjoyment was actually fond memories of other great stories ... and then other parts started to bother me and it lost another star.

[Raucous]

I was quite taken with this book. I identified strongly with the main character, recognizing a bit of myself in her and seeing more in a close friend who identifies as autistic. The AIs and the system they'd built up to control humanity were also compelling. Forcing humanity to use vacuum tubes in their computing devices to avoid their constructing AI competitors was an interesting throwback to the early days of computing. It didn't surprise me to learn after I finished that the author and I share an academic computer science background.

I've read very little Lovecraftian literature and so I'm not clear on how what she's done here relates to the rest of that universe. It was all very weird to me but I did like the way that weirdness was used so effectively against the rational and predictable AI gods. The way that the sensory weirdness interacted with the main character's autism was fascinating to me.

There were things that bothered me. Some of the other characters felt flat and I found the motivations of the Outside opaque. Still this book worked for me on multiple levels. It's one of my favorites of the year.

[Kaa]

I just finally finished this evening, and I think I'll probably have more developed thoughts tomorrow, but I wanted to come see what else was being said. Kristjan, I really appreciated your analysis of the book - you helped me identify some of the things that worked for me, and gave me some additional things to think about. I also thought Dan's metaphor was really apt, and I would agree that this book has a lot to say about how AIs can reproduce and magnify systems of domination. I will definitely be thinking more about that.

A couple additional immediate thoughts/reactions:

-I liked the way Yasira's autism was often conveyed through the steps she takes to avoid potential issues or appear more neurotypical - that felt very real to me.

-I didn't really feel this was horror - I'm not especially familiar with Lovecraft, but I expected something with more of the creeping dread of, say, The Ballad of Black Tom. The Outside seemed weird, but never menacing in quite the same way.

[W.]

I liked the book, but need to reread it to better appreciate the ending.

The topics are interesting, the writing style is good; 1st and 2nd “act” are well worked out.

The end, the 3rd “act”, though, ... it didn’t speak to me. It looks all fumbled up and fragmented.
Which is perhaps necessary for the different topics to come to their specific “conclusions”.

It feels it all unravels instead of coming to a satisfying closure, but since the story deals with autism, power and the chaos from the Outside, it could be exactly what the book needed.

Still, despite the bewildering ending (for me), I enjoyed it. When a book makes me think all day about topics and characters; when I walk my dog, while reading a book on my phone - that’s usually a sign I‘m enjoying a story. So thank you writer.

I was told it had elements of horror in it; I didn’t sense that. There’s of course a presence of Lovecraft, but it feels detached, not scary, not frightening.

The topic of a post-singularity is well worked out. AI had the power of Olympian gods, humans are their cattle. It’s in the realm of possibility as far as I’m concerned.

The theme of power and domination is very much a topic of importance. Many relationships seems infected by power and it’s abuses, but also it’s benefits.

Maybe only the Outside has no power dynamics, the way we understand (or are capable of understanding).

One longs to meet one of the AI gods, or at least see a glimpse.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

A lovely summary and really good analysis, Willem! I agree, the earlier parts were stronger and the ending felt a bit rushed or incomplete. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts after a re-read!

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

Dan wrote: "I'm wondering if the gods and angels of this book can be viewed as a metaphor for these algorithms/AIs in our world, and The Outside as representing the larger, harder-to-understand social and historical context that those algorithms and AIs cannot understand."

This was exactly my take! The neruo-atypical characters were the most unpredictable of humans and therefore were closer to the Outside than the wholly predictable AI algorithms.

I also really appreciated the chaos vs order type of conflict vs the good/bad one. It seems like a great insight that we can read bad intentions into AI actions that in the end are just trying to accomplish order with the most efficiency. The fact that they have learned that brutal methods are most effective in some cases probably speaks more about humanity than sentient machine intelligence.

[Anthony]

I just finished it and...what the hell...happened...in the last quarter of the novel...??????????????

I consider this to be a failure of execution in a major way, but I did enjoy a lot about the first 3/4 of it. I found it very refreshing to encounter a character as unique in her thinking and expression as Yasira, and I thought that for the most part Akavi was a satisfyingly believable and dastardly baddie. But I kind of want my stories to add up to something that, well, *ADDS UP* and this just didn’t for me.

[Oleksandr]

Anthony wrote: "I just finished it and...what the hell...happened...in the last quarter of the novel...??????????????"

It was definitely rushed, whether the author wanted to get over it or it was an attempt to close after the main revelations...

[Melani]

I just finished and I really enjoyed it. It was a meditation on religion in science and what happens when the two intersect. Shades of Galileo.

That said, I definitely got the magical disability vibe that's been discussed here. The idea that those two women could interact with that kind of science and not go mad because of their disability. If there are further books, I'd be very keen to see what happens with Tiv and the Outside. Though of course, she has someone to guide her through it and so might not end up mad as a result of being a student.

And while Lovecraft was mentioned as an influence, did anyone else catch the reference to Wells, with the Morloch War? It gave me the impression that Hoffmann was building on that story, that the humans in the story were the poor beings preyed upon by the Morlochs and rescued by computers.

[Oleksandr]

Melani wrote: "the reference to Wells, with the Morloch War? It gave me the impression that Hoffmann was building on that story, that the humans in the story were the poor beings preyed upon by the Morlochs and rescued by computers."

I noticed the reference but assumed it not developed well enough to be counted as a homage. Moreover, in Well's original both Morlocks and Eloi are people (proletariat and bourgeoisie respectively). As wiki correctly notes "the Morlocks have appeared in many other works such as sequels, movies, television shows, and works by other authors, many of which have deviated from the original description." They are almost "little green men" univeral

[Melani]

Oleksandr wrote: "Melani wrote: "the reference to Wells, with the Morloch War? It gave me the impression that Hoffmann was building on that story, that the humans in the story were the poor beings preyed upon by the..."

Yes I'm aware that the Morlochs are also people, but the few references to the Morloch war implied that there were humans on the side of (I forget the name the 'evil' computer gods). So you can infere that on one side you had the Gods and the Eloi and on the other the Morlochs and 'evil Gods'. No, the reference isn't super developed. Its kind of a toss off, but on the other hand, she specifically used the word 'Morloch'. At the very least she was referencing Wells.

[Kaia]

I really appreciate all of the great conversation in this thread from 2019 - it helped me to think about the book in a different way. I really loved the first 3/4 of the book, but the end was underwhelming for me. I'm not sure what I wanted - more of a reveal or explanation about the Outside, a better feeling for how Yasira saved the planet, something else?

The world was super interesting to me, especially reading this in 2025 with the advances in AI and computing, even since the original discussion. The idea of computer "gods" who absorb human consciousnesses to stay alive and relevant is very creepy. Also, thinking about how the gods' selection of which humans to absorb creates innate biases and blindspots. And even though they are essentially computers, they have a very human drive for power and control.

I liked how the characters were complex and didn't fall along traditional "good" and "evil" lines necessarily. The contrast between Yasira's and Akavi's perspectives was interesting, and I'm still not sure how I feel about Dr. Talirr, in terms of good or bad. I did find that Yasira's internal conflicts and beating herself up, especially in regards to Tiv, got old after a while, especially toward the end.

I have not read any Lovecraft, so any references in that regard mostly went past me, I'm afraid.