PSS: Part Three: Chapter 18-26

[Dara]

Please keep all discussion and thoughts to the events of Chapter 18 through Chapter 26.

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Do not discuss events from later chapters/books.

[Dara]

A bit more plot development. Interesting to see what the caterpillar turned into. It's terrifying. Still pretty underwhelmed by the book as a whole.

[Mark]

Dara wrote: "A bit more plot development. Interesting to see what the caterpillar turned into. It's terrifying. Still pretty underwhelmed by the book as a whole."

i found it a lot better after this happened.

[Bill]

So i took a break for a bit to read two other books and came back to some dream sucking flying monster? Bit more interested now.

[Dara]

I picture the moths to look like the evil gremlins that ate after midnight that drink booze and fight and everything, except with wings.

[Bill]

I really enjoyed the strike by the militia. It was nice to get some action.

[Sky]

I liked the juxtaposition of the caterpillar remaking itself into the moth creature with the virus remaking the automaton into a sentient being.

Again we see the exploration of boundary points - The points where the caterpillar is not yet a moth but is no longer a caterpillar, the point where the automaton is not yet sentient but the virus is making it more than a simple cleaning bot following a rote instruction set.

Does the city also remake itself at neighborhood boundaries?

The story started to get a little absurd and humorous to me at this point, but maybe it was just the weed - The moth creatures seem to be your average psychic vampires... really? The city's brass is looking at how to deal with the moth creatures and needs to find someone or something immune to their psychic attacks, and go off to meet the ambassador of Hell. This was a pretty funny conversation to me. Boom, all of a sudden, Hell is real. So are zombies. Okay.

It seems to me an army of sentient automatons would be a much better choice to fight the moth creatures than looking to Zombies. But if even the devil can't kick their ass, who can? I guess the brain patterns of demons are too similar to humans so this mysterious Weaver is their only hope?

Torque energy is brought up in this section. The description of the devastated wasteland of a city left behind after the torque bomb and the mutant creatures that ensued remind me of atomic bombs.

It's getting to be a weird mix of steam punk, magic, religion, and some technology that seems far beyond current science, but its a fun mix of ideas and genres

So during Yagharek's monologue at the end of this part we are given to believe that he has somehow sensed the coming of these Moth creatures, and has the capacity to fight them, if the power of flight is returned to him?

I am wondering what the purpose of the sentient automaton in Isaac's office is. It left and did something immediately before the government's raid on the socialists, but we are not told what.

I am wondering where the whole strike/raid on strikers plot is going. Obviously Lin and Isaac are tied up with them in their social circle - One of their friends writes pieces for the RR and in the final chapter of this part we see the editor is taken captive by the government forces.

So the book is growing on me. I am getting involved in the characters and the world. I am still frustrated by the slow pace, but this always happens when I switch from the stuff I normally read - stuff that contains quite a bit of action. It takes a while to warm up and appreciate denser, more methodical, lyrical works.

Unfortunately right now is a particularly stressful time - My wife was expecting to finish her doctoral program this coming Friday but one of the professors on her committee is raising some completely asinine objections, asking for something that another committee member asked her specifically not to do. Its like herding cats, and it's extremely frustrating and stressful because we've been waiting 10 years for her to finish school and start a family and were thinking we finally there, and now it may take another semester, depending on how her committee meeting goes on Tuesday. Sorry for the off-topic rant, but the point is, I may re-shelve this book for a few weeks and move on to something happier/more comforting for a bit, and pick this up again after we finish with The Broken Eye. Maybe I'll read Steelheart, since Firefight is coming out early Jan, maybe some of The Riryia Chronicles, maybe the next two Dresden Files so I can finally see what Changes is all about. I'll see how i feel in the morning.