"This Alien Shore" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

So what did you think? New favorite author?

A few questions to get us started:

1. What did you think of the use of technology?
2. What did you think about the social elements (like the blurbs and the kaja)?
3. Did it feel like it was written over 20 years ago?
4. What were your overall thoughts of the story?

[YouKneeK]

I don’t have the greatest success rate with cyberpunk, but I liked this quite a lot. The world-building was creative and interesting, but also logical and organized. This didn't have the incoherent mish-mash that I feel many cyberpunk worlds introduce.

1. What did you think of the use of technology?

I thought it was mostly done well. The only thing that occasionally pulled me out of the story was the wellseeker, mainly just because I wanted more info on the logistics about that and my mind kept going off on all these tangents about it. I only remember one comment where a character was thinking they needed to make sure they had enough sedative compound on hand. I wanted to know how these compounds got replenished and how often they needed to be replenished for an average person. I wondered if there were quantity restrictions, or if people had to go to counseling or something if they were overusing one. I wondered if there were records kept about who replenished what how often, in which case that would surely be a target for hackers being paid to find info to help discredit a political enemy or something.

2. What did you think about the social elements (like the blurbs and the kaja)?

I liked them. It added to the world-building which I thought was very well done. I particularly liked the kaja system and how things that would be considered mental disorders in our society were considered strengths that allowed them to achieve more in their society.

3. Did it feel like it was written over 20 years ago?

No, I never got a dated vibe from it at all. Although for me, I get that feeling less frequently from books from the 90’s or later and more frequently about books from the 80’s or earlier.

I initially thought it was a little stereotypical that Jamisia’s belligerent, protective side would manifest itself as a male. When I thought about it more after finishing the book, I decided that it probably made sense. Jamisia was a very young girl at the time and she had been raised among people full of prejudices, so she very well might have seen those traits as “boy traits”. I don’t know anything about the actual psychology of how real schizophrenia develops.


4. What were your overall thoughts of the story?

For some reason multiple personality type stories really appeal to me, so I was caught up in Jamisia’s story right away. I especially loved that she became aware of the other personalities, could communicate with them, and had to learn to work with them. The virus portion of the story seemed a bit more like typical cyberpunk plot stuff and didn’t really hold anything special for me, so my interest dropped during those parts, especially since I was usually anxious to get back to Jamisia’s story. Things really picked up around the second half though and then I was interested in all of it.

[Bruce]

I thought it was a fun book. The characters were great and the plot moved nicely. I skimmed over some of the info at the beginnings of the chapters, however.

1. What did you think of the use of technology?
The parts about space travel controlled by the Guild felt like a familiar sci-fi trope, but the brainware connected to an outernet with viruses felt fresh. I get that by now its been done many times, but many of them are so jumbled and hard to follow. Friedman's version felt clear and fun.

2. What did you think about the social elements (like the blurbs and the kaja)?
I didn't follow them too much. That must be some of the stuff I skimmed over.

3. Did it feel like it was written over 20 years ago?
Yes, it had that feel, but it also had some modern appeal. More importantly, the characters were great. They drew me in more than the tech.

4. What were your overall thoughts of the story?
I thought it was great. I'm surprised the book is unknown, especially with such great characters and a thriller plot.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Ah man, I LOVED the excerpts from the beginnings of the chapters! I thought it added so much thought to her world. They contained a lot of different aspects of living with various mental illnesses, how society can adapt to them, and I think most interestingly were like the highlight reels of emerging tech at the time, and how humans and tech would interact.

[Bruce]

Allison wrote: "Ah man, I LOVED the excerpts from the beginnings of the chapters! I thought it added so much thought to her world. They contained a lot of different aspects of living with various mental illnesses,..."

I'm sure it was good and Friedman probably put a great deal of thought and time into the ideas. I really got more into the dialog and action. I prefer to see ideas flushed out through conflict than explanation.

[Bruce]

Allison wrote: "Ah man, I LOVED the excerpts from the beginnings of the chapters! I thought it added so much thought to her world. "

What parts did you feel could be edited down more, if anything?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Bruce wrote: "Allison wrote: "Ah man, I LOVED the excerpts from the beginnings of the chapters! I thought it added so much thought to her world. "

What parts did you feel could be edited down more, if anything?"

I think there was a lot of floundering...she'd write out things until the idea took or she felt she'd communicated the next step and I think that hindered the thriller pace of it. Lots of redundancies (ex. everyone swearing vengeance on the creators of Lucifer multiple times; Masada missing his home and saying he wasn't comfortable; Phoenix's whole character more or less lol)

And there were points where everything came out all at once which made me feel like the preceding back and forths weren't necessary, like when the guildmaster of Paradise was just like "here's your whole origin story, Jamisia." So I think if a lot of that had been streamlined, it would have easily taken 10-20% out of the book.

[Bruce]

Allison wrote: "I think there was a lot of floundering...she'd write out things until the idea took or she felt she'd communicated the next step and I think that hindered the thriller pace of it. Lots of redundancies."

I could see that. I agree that it definitely hindered the thriller pace. Makes you wonder about the editing?

[Gabi]

Can I just copy paste YouKneeK's comment ^^'?

It perfectly summarizes much of my impressions,

adding

1) - I never would have thought about the technicalities of the wellseeker. Great point there, YouKneek! Now I can't stop thinking about it.

The outerpilots remembered me instantly of Dune.

2) - I loved the kaja system! Such a great idea to outwardly signal how to interact with your counterpart. I think this was my most favourite part of the worldbuilding.

3) - The male part being the aggressive one and the females being mostly shy/seductive felt dated. Other than that the story felt timeless to me.

4) - Same as YouKneeK - I skimmed a bit over the cyberpunk parts. They were too many and too much explanation for me. (but then I'm somebody who can read over 10 pages about pioneer fauna without getting bored … so that's a clear case of preference).

I was hindered from getting emotionally involved into the story cause of too many characters and POV-/setting-jumps. It was a solid spy/political intrigue story, but I didn't care about any of the protagonists.

[YouKneeK]

Gabi wrote: "I never would have thought about the technicalities of the wellseeker. Great point there, YouKneek! Now I can't stop thinking about it."

Haha, thanks. Sometimes I just latch on to some random and usually minor thing in a story and then can’t let it go. I once spent most of a 2500+ page series worrying about a book that was loaned to another character, with all sorts of ideas in my head about how it might play a crucial role in the plot, but it was never mentioned again. And while I've forgotten probably 75% of the plot details from that series, I still remember this pointless thing nearly 4 years later. ;)

I was glad to read your take on the male vs female personalities. I had been wondering what others thought about that, if anything.

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

I too really enjoyed the book and liked just about all the aspects of it. One of the parts that YouKneek sort of didn't like is one of my favorites in stories.... When authors set up a scenario that is completely plausible yet mostly unexplained and lets me try to fill in the details definitely pulls me out of the story but usually in a good way.

Like YouKneek, I found my mind wandering when thinking about the wellseeker and the brilliant part about it being totally under your control. (paraphrasing) "Your heart is about to explode from adrenaline, is that OK?" Should it totally be under your control or does that make it loose its effectiveness. Completely tangential to the story but that is what my brain loves. I also found myself mentally writing AI bots to to help with the time lag when Phoenix was hacking the Earth node so far away, which also had very little to do with the story but was IMO a brilliant and completely plausible setup.

Well done members for choosing this! 5 star books that I never would have picked up without the club is kind of the point.

I actually would have edited very little, it all seemed to work for me although in other novels I have complained about the very same things so probably I was just loving the book and skipping anything that might resemble bad.

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

One other part I loved, that Oleksandr mentioned in his review, is the changing view of the Guild being the bad guys. At the beginning I was all up in the bully Guild's grill thinking you can't push people around like that but at the end, obviously, my opinion changed. Clearly a conscious manipulation by Friedman but it was interesting thinking about the ends, (equality for all, access to space for everyone), justifying the heavy handed means the Guild uses.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Oh that's a great observation about the Guild. Oleksandr, if you see this, I hope you'll share more thoughts on that.

What did others think of that change?

[Ariana]

I really liked this, although it took me a while to get through. One of my favorite aspects was the whole concept of Guera, where mental illness is reframed as a strength and the variety of the human brain is celebrated, instead of anything out of the norm being stigmatized.

[Bruce]

Ariana wrote: "I really liked this, although it took me a while to get through. One of my favorite aspects was the whole concept of Guera, where mental illness is reframed as a strength and the variety of the hum..."

I thought that was pretty cool also. The idea was illustrated so well in the book, really making it a central plot point.

[Bruce]

Allison wrote: "Oh that's a great observation about the Guild. Oleksandr, if you see this, I hope you'll share more thoughts on that.

What did others think of that change?"

That was an adept manipulation by Friedman. That change gave the book a rounded feel and added much to the depth of characters and plot.

[Oleksandr]

re: Guild from the start we are aware that power corrupts and in a galactic commonwealth transport is paramount. If we look deeper in SF history, there were several takes on monopolized logistics and its effect. One of the earliest I guess is The Roads Must Roll, where the solution is to give it to military engineers (which in turns can be linked back to Plato's beneficent enlightened dictators). Here we actually see no within the system counterbalances for the Guild (I guess the easiest way to go would be to fiercely rival guilds that cannot collude), but here we have more an outside control in the sense of 'dragons'.

re: Wellseeker, I think it can control addiction by suppressing release of chemicals which make us crave drugs or their effects in the first place. What is extremely dangerous is that wellseeker has an override of direct order of the user. Add to that viruses that affect wetware and you can an ultimate control over a person. Scary

[Corey]

I really liked it! It didn't seem dated to me. The world-building was great, and I think she did a good job of introducing details as needed through the story and the blurbs without over-explaining. I do kind of wish there was more explanation of the social aspects of the Guerans, but that's because I thought that was really interesting and want some of my interpretations and assumptions confirmed. I gave it 4 stars but I think with a little editing it could have been closer to 5. Overall I think parts of the story could have been cut out, and there were phrases or concepts that were reused that should have been consolidated in editing. The example that comes to mind is she used a variation of "All the Others agreed, which was a first." For obvious reasons that loses its impact after a few times.

I'm really glad I read this, I doubt I would have come across it if not for this group. I'm interested in reading more from Friedman. I was going to say she was new to me, but I have at least heard of the Coldfire Trilogy.

[Cheryl]

When did you-all realize what was up w/ kaja and mental illness and etc.? I have no idea what you're talking about, and I'm trying to read every bit carefully, and I'm at p. 143.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Hmm...I don't remember the exact part of the book. I figured the face painting ritual meant something when Masad went through it, but I think I realized what all the implications might lead to at the meeting with the guild masters. The little blurbs in the beginning of the chapters for most of the rest of the book outline a bit more what sort of person would wear which kaja.

[Cheryl]

Unless you're talking about the Variants and about the Signs of the Soul, neither of which seem like mental 'illness' but just different talents and perspectives. But do they fit together?

Btw, no worries about spoilers if you can answer me - I have always firmly believed that a good book is worth reading more than once, which by definition makes the idea of spoilers considerably less relevant.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yeah, the signs of the soul start to fit into the landscape. It might be a bit later than where you are, but it should start coming together soonish I think.

[YouKneeK]

Yeah, to my mind it was established pretty early. I don’t have page #’s on my Kindle edition, but I found two passages that stuck out in my mind that I quoted below. The first signs I remember were in the 4th chapter, “Guera”, with Dr. Masada’s behavior and thoughts.

Then in that same chapter, it was made a little more explicit when Masada says:
“Must I remind you how the Terrans feel about my Kaja? The very cognitive style which makes me so valuable on Guera is considered ‘abnormal’ among those people. They did everything they could to eradicate it from their gene pool, and if by some unlucky chance it surfaces now despite those efforts, they use drugs or DNA therapy to ‘correct’ it. Even if the price of that correction is the crippling of a mind, the death of a unique human soul.”

And if that isn’t explicit enough, there’s Jamisia’s thoughts about the Guerans in the next chapter:
”And of course the Guerans – most terrifying of all! – whose mental instabilities mimicked all of Earth’s ancient madnesses…”

[Cheryl]

Ah, ok, I see. Yeah, I guess I'm just refusing, inside my mind, to make the connections, because I object on principle to narrow definitions of sanity.

So, I'm still reluctant to pick the book back up. It's just taking me so very long. Plus I don't like (view spoiler)[ the computer passages, or the political intrigue passages, or the torture, or the vulgarity... (hide spoiler)] I think I'm going to have to move on.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yeah, the consideration of mental illness isn't perfect but as I thought to things just starting at the turn of the century, with people medicating children with ADHD or ASD into near stupors, Michael J Fox going public with his diagnosis...I think she tried to walk a careful line to make it clear this is NOT about sanity, this is about a-typicality and how Earth just adores staying perfectly in the bell curve.

Thankfully this part of her projection hasn't remained as true, although the anti-vaxxer thing does lend startling credence to it.

But it sounds like it's not jiving with you, so yes, onward! No time for books that don't bring you something of value.

[Cheryl]

Thank you!

[Chris]

The Gueran approach to mental illness reminded me a little of Clans of the Alphane Moon, in which each disorder has a separate colony.

As I was thinking, I found this site that cataloged the various Gueran kaja:
https://therakhland.wordpress.com/res...
The author made a couple of replies in the comments section.

All the plotting of the guildmasters made the end - when the Guerans are very gracious - seem incongruous. I can't remember any scene showing Guerans just having a good time, laughing, enjoying each others' company, etc.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot. I will keep an eye out for more by Friedman.

[Cheryl]

Oh, see, now if I had that as I was beginning to read, it would have helped so much. Esp. the author's last comment, pointing out that, indeed, some didn't reference disorders so much as just personality traits. Thank you Chris, that's well worth reading even if one has given up on the book. (Heck, maybe someday I'll try again, it could happen.)

[Mareike]

Thanks for that link, Chris! I caught some of the references (e.g. with the simba kaja) but not all of them and it's neat to be able to look them up.

I'm not done yet, but so far I'm enjoying the novel and especially the worldbuilding and the kaja system. It feels like they're an effort to make social interactions as pleasant aand as inclusive as possible.

The different Hausmann variants are a bearvway of thinking about how extended spacetravel might affect human beings - and the history and frictions feel - sadly - plausible.

I've listened up to chapter 10 and I keep tjinking about the "corporate names" people on Earth have instead of our contemporary last names. The hypercapitalism that seems to hint at sounds dystopian.

[Christopher]

1. What did you think of the use of technology?
To me this was the strongest element of the book -- a lot of interesting ideas, several of which felt predictive of technologies we have today (e.g. there's mention of augmented reality program that replaces one type of image with smiley faces)

2. What did you think about the social elements (like the blurbs and the kaja)?
These didn't do anything for me, sadly.

3. Did it feel like it was written over 20 years ago?
In some ways not (see answer to #1), but in others yes. Notably Phoenix being a "hacker", to me that felt like a bigger thing in the late 90's (I think there was even a film by that title?)

4. What were your overall thoughts of the story?
It was okay, but it felt less focused than I would have liked, bouncing around to different plot threads (like is it about Jamisia running away, the plot with the guild virus, or I guess it's both?) Lots of % spent on worldbuilding. I felt like the Devlin reveal was easy to predict. Overall felt like an average read for me with some good and bad points.

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[Ryan]

I quite enjoyed the book - I'll post my review after some questions.

Thanks for the link about kaja. The author's comments below the article were particularly helpful. She states " On Guera, whatever your mood, personality type, cognitive style, or public allegiance is, you provide that information to everyone when they first meet you, up front ". This makes a lot of sense, but the word "mood" seems to conflict with how the kaja were presented in the book, - i.e. as permanent characteristics.

I personally found kaja to be a bit too much - I don't feel they really added much to the story. I have one more question about kaja - how is one's kaja chosen? Is it a personal choice, based on one's personality? Or are they somehow socialized from a young age to be a certain kaja? Is it genetic?

The multiple personalities in Jamisia's head are confusing. My understanding is that they were put there by Shido somehow, in the hopes of bringing one out that had the power to navigate the ainniq, and then her brainware was installed to be able to support them. But what ARE these personalities? My best guess is that they were parts of Jamisia's personality that were somehow separated, but this doesn't feel right. And why are all these personalities hoped/expected to enable ainniq piloting?

[Cheryl]

Yes, questions. How did these things happen, and how does all this actually work?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I don't think the kaja were all shown as permanent. There were ones like the "primary" forms that explain innate qualities, but then nantana, simba etc. were all chosen and adapted at will to explain important mood or personality indicators of the day/moment. We see them pick secondary or I think once even tertiary markers. I thought of it like some people I've known who had outfits or accessories for different moods. Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she wears different jabots/collars to reflect her stance on an opinion, for example (not that I know her, but that's a confirmed thing that she does--it's actually pretty cool, look it up!)

So there are some things people "wear" every day (think a religious symbol or wedding band or visible tattoo or some other social indicator that is precious and relatively constant) and then there are other things we layer on to give folks additional clues about our internal lives.

(This was one of my favorite aspects--I've often dreamed about having some system to share important personal information to defuse tension in social situations.)

[Oleksandr]

Ryan wrote: " how is one's kaja chosen? Is it a personal choice, based on one's personality? Or are they somehow socialized from a young age to be a certain kaja? Is it genetic?."

I assumed that they are encouraged from early age to be a certain kaja partially based on genetic and epigenetic factors. For example, it is known that some mental disorders (like bipolar) have a strong genetic component.

Ryan wrote: "The multiple personalities in Jamisia's head are confusing. My understanding is that they were put there by Shido somehow, in the hopes of bringing one out that had the power to navigate the ainniq, and then her brainware was installed to be able to support them. But what ARE these personalities?"

I assumed they are personalities of real people, because they had specific training and Jamisia was too young to get all this training even if she forget it in a dominant' mode. I guess on Earth they knew that some psychic abnormalities are linked to being in the Guild, so they tried to induce a similar (in their view) abnormality

[YouKneeK]

Kaja
Allison’s description matches up pretty closely with how I interpreted it. Given the importance their society placed on respecting certain personality traits, with clear definitions about which ones should be deferred to when in order for their society to function smoothly, I definitely agree that the primary kaja were based on innate qualities. Otherwise, those rules wouldn't have been so necessary.

I do think Ryan brought up some interesting questions and I would have loved to see some discussion in the book about how and when a child’s kaja was determined. I wonder if there were ever issues with a kaja being defined incorrectly because maybe a child, or even a teenager, had been emulating the behavior of a respected adult, or because they thought emulating a certain behavior would bring certain benefits. Maybe the personality traits were too strong in them for that kind of pretense.

Split Personality
Regarding the split personality, I interpreted it as an actual split personality disorder. They “rescued” her after a traumatic event, saw signs of it forming as a result of her experience, and instead of trying to help her they ”nurtured the darkness within her. Until her young spirit made what adaptation it could, and divided, and divided, and divided again.” (Quoted from OUTSHIP: DIONYSUS, near the end of the book at about 91%.)

So I think it was Jamisia’s own personality that fragmented; I didn’t get any indication that they inserted personalities of other people into her head. If they could have done that, it seems like they could have skipped the torture and maybe would have inserted a better collection of useful and more stable personalities. I’m pretty skeptical as to whether it makes actual real-world sense that a split personality disorder could be induced the way it was in this book, particularly when the goal specifically requires one of the personalities to be insane.

The personality of the incessantly crying boy is the one they intended to serve as a pilot. He was the insane one, which was a requirement for being a pilot. Here are some more quotes from the “OUTSHIP: DIONYSUS” chapter where some of this stuff was explained more explicitly:

”The price of the stars is insanity, Jamisia. Earth has known that for years. What they didn’t know was how to control the madness, so that it would only surface in the ainniq. That’s why they did what they did to you. Divided you up into separate souls, using the only method known to them.”

The below quote explains it a little more, and also confirms that the personalities were taught; they didn’t start out with the information. Several years passed between the time Jamisia’s personalities were split and the beginning of the book, so I think there was plenty of time for training to take place when other personalities had control of her body.

”They thought if they could cordon off the madness into a separate persona, let it surface only when it was needed, they would have a functional outpilot. That’s why you… that’s why Raven was taught how to fly a ship, so she could provide the technical expertise needed. There was no way to teach the sick one anything.”

[Oleksandr]

YouKneeK wrote: "The below quote explains it a little more, and also confirms that the personalities were taught; they didn’t start out with the information. Several years passed between the time Jamisia’s personalities were split and the beginning of the book, so I think there was plenty of time for training to take place when other personalities had control of her body."

While I agree that your interpretation seems valid, I guess the author was wrong by setting the age of Jamisia - with all training of several personalities she is just too young to have all this experience - from pilot to seducer and fighter

[Mareike]

YouKneeK wrote: "....
Split Personality
Regarding the split personality, I interpreted it as an actual split personality disorder. They “rescued” her after a traumatic event, saw signs of it forming as a result of her experience, and instead of trying to help her they ”nurtured the darkness within her. Until her young spirit made what adaptation it could, and divided, and divided, and divided again.” (Quoted from OUTSHIP: DIONYSUS, near the end of the book at about 91%.)

So I think it was Jamisia’s own personality that fragmented; I didn’t get any indication that they inserted personalities of other people into her head. If they could have done that, it seems like they could have skipped the torture and maybe would have inserted a better collection of useful and more stable personalities. I’m pretty skeptical as to whether it makes actual real-world sense that a split personality disorder could be induced the way it was in this book, particularly when the goal specifically requires one of the personalities to be insane. ..."

I agree. That's how I understood it, too. But it's also true that the abilities the different personalities have seem a bit much at times. Though Jamisia also remembers these times where she "lost hours" or woke up to things in her room that weren't hers. So I guess that is at least some explanation as to how the other personalities were trained. Not sure it's 100% convincing (or that the way the split personalities are explained in the first place is), but I guess that's where the speculative/fantastic aspect comes in.

[YouKneeK]

I don’t know, I didn’t see that much in the way of special abilities from the personalities. Maybe I’m forgetting some stuff -- it’s been 2 weeks and over 3 books since I finished. In the review I wrote right after I finished reading it, I mentioned liking how none of the personalities were “over-the-top, unrealistically smart or skilled,” so I guess I never felt like they had any particularly amazing abilities even when I was reading it.

Aside from Raven, did any of them really have any specialized knowledge that required actual teaching? Katlyn’s seductive skills seemed to me more a factor of her personality, a lack of inhibition, and being more observant about body language and human nature. The latter could be learned just by observing other people through Jamisia’s eyes, even when Katlyn didn’t have control of their body. Plus she probably got some practice in when she did have control. I don’t see any reason for her skills to have been created intentionally because I wouldn’t expect seduction to be a prime qualification for a pilot? :)

Derik’s only actual skills seemed to be belligerence and occasional temper tantrums, something I think many 2-year-olds are capable of. Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit, but he seemed to me to be all bluster and little substance. I guess he did have a higher level of bravery when risk-taking was required, but he didn’t seem to be of any real use in a physical fight. I remember one incidence of a physical alteration where he was ineffective because he was still limited to Jamisia’s strength (or lack thereof) and he didn’t seem to know any special tricks for dealing with a stronger opponent.

The rest of the personalities didn’t make much of an impression on me and have started fading from my memory already. I know there were children who I don’t remember doing much more than acting scared, and I think there was a more rational female personality who sometimes helped them make more logical decisions? And then of course the crying boy who couldn’t be taught and was just needed for his insanity which allowed him to see the “dragons”. Who/what am I forgetting?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

That was my takeaway too, YouKneeK, that it was mostly a few dominant personalities that sort of splintered off Jamisia's traits, with a few exceptions like Raven, but we also know that they have training protocols that basically download things into folks' brains so even that wasn't particularly unusual seeming to me? I think it was the creation of The Crying Boy that made Jamisia so useful...not sure why they wouldn't teach her primary self flight lessons...I guess they didn't think they could trust her to keep it quiet? But there are inpilots, too, so I'm not sure that that would be enough to be suspicious, either.

Jamisia's split self was one of the parts I did think was most fanciful, as we now know this isn't really how multiple personality disorder works, but there was enough justification (medical experimentation, tremendous amounts of brain hardware, initial and subsequent trauma etc) that I was able to bite at least.

[Oleksandr]

YouKneeK wrote: "Derik’s only actual skills seemed to be belligerence and occasional temper tantrums, something I think many 2-year-olds are capable of. "

He knew how to fight (not some martial art but street smarts and they are hard to achieve unnoticed). I agree that most likely the author's intention was to have them a pure split personality, but Jamisia still ought to have lost much more time and notice it - she assumed that she lost none, but there were some strange items in her room.

[Chris]

Allison wrote: "Jamisia's split self was one of the parts I did think was most fanciful, as we now know this isn't really how multiple personality disorder works...."

Would you elaborate on what is now known? My impression is that the diagnosis is controversial.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Haha I am not an authority whatsoever. I meant more that I know it was popular in fiction to have the idea of someone with separate entities including separate (high level) skills, some with alters who "knew" the other alters and some who did not.

I don't think that's usually how it works? Or at least not as cut and dried / dramatic as we see in most tv shows and books.

[Mareike]

Allison wrote: "Haha I am not an authority whatsoever. I meant more that I know it was popular in fiction to have the idea of someone with separate entities including separate (high level) skills, some with alters..."

If I don't forget by tomorrow, I can ask a friend who is a therapist-in-training about this. She can probably shed some light on this.

[Christopher]

FWIW I was reminded a bit of the Netflix show Sense8 at times during this novel with the multiple personalities with multiple skills in one body theme.

[Ryan]

Thanks for the comment on kaja, Allison, that settles it pretty well. I knew there were secondary/tertiary kaja but I didn't get that these could be temporary.

On split personalities, then - are we agreed that Raven and the crying boy are the only ones that Shido really cared about? Are we to assume, then, that the other ones were just along for the ride when Shido encouraged the splintering?

I guess Shido must have known something about the nature of the illness that allows outpilots to see the sana, if they were able to encourage a personality with that same illness/ability.

[Sabrina]

First – thank you all for your very insightful comments. I just finished the book and loved reading through them all as they completed my own inner pictures.

Gabi wrote: “I was hindered from getting emotionally involved into the story cause of too many characters and POV-/setting-jumps. It was a solid spy/political intrigue story, but I didn't care about any of the protagonists.”

I also had this problem a bit, there were quite a lot of jumps and I found it difficult – especially on audio to follow them all. Overall, I really liked Jamisia – especially after that terrifying opening scene. But she often got a bit too winy or dependent on others. It was okay in the beginning, but I somehow expected her to start taking responsibility for her life(s) and she never quite did – until again the very brilliant ending. I liked that, but I’ve hoped for it to happen sooner. I mean all these minds in her head – imagine what could happen if they started working together…!

I also really liked to read the comment from Hank/Oleksandr about how the guild changed from being evil to having a heart. I especially liked how the Guild-mistress herself chose her human-side in the end: it was quite beautifully written.

I mostly agree with YouKneek about Allison’s questions in the beginning – why always wait for the male to save you?

Finally, I also liked the idea of a wellseeker, but the overuse of sedatives intrigued me no end. How could anyone achieve anything by being drugged (and addicted) all the time. Although, I guess the author did catch up on the opioid-crisis and not just the internet. I fear to read anything she’ll write today – it may well come true!

[Jack]

Overall, it was great to see all the insightful comments!!! This is a book I would have not read if it hadn't been for the Goodreads choice as the monthly book, and I liked it more than I expected!!

I'm going to jump on one thread from below, because I found it the most compelling aspect of the story. This is the thread from YouKneeK with the quote “Must I remind you how the Terrans feel about my Kaja? The very cognitive style which makes me so valuable on Guera is considered ‘abnormal’ among those people. They did everything they could to eradicate it from their gene pool, and if by some unlucky chance it surfaces now despite those efforts, they use drugs or DNA therapy to ‘correct’ it. Even if the price of that correction is the crippling of a mind, the death of a unique human soul.”

When I hit this phrase in the book, it really jumped out at me, because Masada is iru (or what I would interpret as Autistic). All of Masada's key skills are what Autistic individuals would interpret as Autistic "superpowers". Similarly, other of Masada's traits (over-sensitivity to external input, difficulty in determining social signals intuitively, etc.) are distinctive to Autism as well. There is, of course, a significant debate in our society as to whether Autism should be "cured" (note the quotes) or is a valued part of the diversity of human personality.

This then suggested the idea that ALL the kaja are actually manifestations of various things that would be considered "mental illnesses" (again, note the quotes) in a more controlled society. While I didn't try to formally map this, I certainly read the book assuming that "simba" and "yakimi" and all the rest were names of other "mental illnesses"that would certainly not be considered illness in Guera, but rather key parts of Guera society.

Along those same lines, Jamisia's multiple personalities seemed to match up pretty well with at least the public portrayal of "multiple-personality-disorder". In particular, the portrayal reminded me strongly of When Rabbit Howls. While the veracity and technical accuracy of When Rabbit Howls can certainly be debated (it is not a scholarly book, after all), it does seem like the characterization of Jamisia's multiple personalities closely followed the pattern described in When Rabbit Howls.

Once I started thinking about the Gueran (sp?) society in this way (basically with things that would be considered "mental illnesses" in a more controlled society being celebrated and acknowledged for their accompanying superpowers) it almost became inevitable that Jamisia would end up Gueran after the value of her multiple personalities became recognized. The line at the end seemed to almost summarize the whole book, "There are kaja even for the changing ones. Special customs, even for them."

By the way, as a completely unrelated aside, I liked that the book had an ENDING. For some reason, I ended up reading three books back-to-back that didn't have endings and was beginning to wonder if the concept of a beginning-middle-and end to a book had somehow disappeared ...

[Mareike]

I agree with your points, Jack. I had a similar thought process as I went through the book.
I think the only thing that took say from the ending for me is that we didn't get Jamisia's POV. I wanted to hear how she's doing, not just get Phoenix moping about her.

[Jack]

Mareike,

Well, that's certainly a good point! I must confess I got so wrapped up in the compelling idea that she was going to end up in Gueran society (where it seemed like she "fit") that it didn't occur to me that it would have been good to see the whole event from her POV.

[Mareike]

Yeah...
I did like her ending up on Guera, though. A lot better than what she assumed would happen.