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The Book of Koli
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"The Book of Koli" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*
60% through.OMG, Koli going around with the DreamSleeve and talking with Monono in an induction field - it's just like
(Spoiler for Fate of the Fallen)
with Aaslo carrying around the sack with Mathias' head!
We may just continue our discussions from that over here. ;-)
4. I liked the world building a lot. I thought it was really interesting how it was far future and there was leftover tech that felt super powered. And I loved how the power dynamics there were explored. And I was mega intrigued by the carnivorous trees!For me, the pacing was bit slow and I didn't feel super attached to Koli as a character. I wish that plot had gotten more focus and Koli as a character less focus...cuz he was kind of boring and immature. Oh! And I hated the narrative style of old Koli telling the story of young Koli and going on and on about the telling of the story rather than just freaking telling the story.
I'm the opposite of Kristenelle here: The way the story was told was one of the highlights for me. I love this kind of narration structure.
Yeah, the dangerous plants is great. I really like the Koli/Monono relationship. I was pretty invested in Koli, right up until the point he left the village. Before that, his immaturity and lack of knowledge drove a lot of the tension, and his relationships were interesting. I cared about him, and cared that he might harm himself through his own lack of wisdom and choices. Now it's all about a creepy cult and we've left behind the people and culture I was interested in. The tension is just action film tension--will Koli get burned up or eaten? And of course we know he won't.
Does "Dandrake" mean or come from anything?This thread has some info on locations and etymologies:
Koli Flash Group Discussion no spoilers
www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21703298-reading-no-spoilers
In the no spoiler thread, we were talking about the term count and seal, which we think is council, but also, there are a few things that we're given as clues about Mythenwood--I think the council room is a financial building, possibly a bank. They talk about circular rooms with really thick walls, huge metal doors and so on. I think they might use the vault as a meeting room, like the old school style. Have you ever been in one of those? I love them. They feel so solid. So then count and seal would also be a term specific to Mythenwood and the origins of what made their settlement. (i.e. they meet where the money was counted and sealed)
I was poking through their Wikipedia article to figure out which buildings, then decided I don't care that much and abandoned the project. Who will take up the mantleMytholmroyd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mytholmroyd
I did not figure out what "bolts" were until the second-to-last scene 🙄
Here is the area in which the book takes place (not sure how to save a screenshot of the map #old)https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.735...
Allison wrote: "Have you ever been in one of those? I love them. They feel so solid."A circular vault, or any vault?
Allison wrote: "In the no spoiler thread, we were talking about the term count and seal, which we think is council, but also, there are a few things that we're given as clues about Mythenwood--I think the council ..."on page 58 it says "They was going to whelm the city, kill the king along with all his Count and Seal,.." which makes me think our interpretation of it as council might be right. At least it sounds right to me in that context.
also the possible connection with the term and the building perhaps being a bank is super interesting and something that wouldn't have occurred to me.
This one's been a struggle. I don't hate it, and it is pretty compelling, but the language does slow the pace considerably. Only at 29% (which is a little after page 100 I guess?). Which in five days is an unacceptable pace. I've more or less given up on the audiobook. It requires too much attention, and you miss a lot of the wordplay when you're just hearing it phonetically.
I will say that this book has fully embraced one of my least favorite narrative devices in first-person stories, which is that foreboding "I didn't know then how right I was" stuff. Or the "I will tell you that bit later" stuff. It's not serving the story. It's just distracting me and fracturing the narrative.
Like, stop hinting at how things are going to turn out later, and just tell the story. Don't tell me you're going to be exiled like 100 pages before you get exiled.
Joon wrote: "This one's been a struggle. I don't hate it, and it is pretty compelling, but the language does slow the pace considerably. Only at 29% (which is a little after page 100 I guess?). Which in five da..."I'd recommend sticking with it. While I've not yet finished - I'm about 60% of the way through - I went from kind-of enjoying it to liking it much more somewhere after the one-third mark when the pace picks up and... other things happen ( I know this is the spoiler thread, but I'm answering Joon's specific question ).
A word about Monono.I really enjoyed how she is initially clearly a programme - Koli realises that she tells him things in exactly the same wording sometimes - but when she returns from her End User Request quest she seems to be a full-on AI. I'm interest to see how this develops.
For me this series was the discovery of 2020. After finishing book 1 I preordered book 2 and now I've preordered the last one (hopefully next month). Structure, idea, prose and character handling is perfect to my liking. It definitely goes on my Hugo nomination list
The first half of the story reminded me of the M. Night Shymalan film The Village. Both have a village culture based on isolation and lies that the main character and the viewer/reader are uncovering at the same time.
David wrote: "The first half of the story reminded me of the M. Night Shymalan film The Village. Both have a village culture based on isolation and lies that the main character and the viewer/reader are uncoveri..."Yeah, this was one of the first things I thought of as well, and is really one of those hopes that I'm kind of hanging this whole book on: that there's something out there we aren't expecting.
Joon wrote: "I will say that this book has fully embraced one of my least favorite narrative devices in first-person stories, which is that foreboding "I didn't know then how right I was" stuff. Or the "I will tell you that bit later" stuff. It's not serving the story. It's just distracting me and fracturing the narrative."Completely agree with you there.
I will just say, don't get too hung up on the language. A lot of people are having a lot of fun discussing it and thinking about it, but really dissecting it and figuring out where every word came from isn't necessary to enjoy the story. I listened to the audiobook and sped up the reading to 1.5x. I found the reader to be super slow.
And then, while I enjoyed this book ok, I thought the next book, The Trials of Koli, was way better.
The reader is tough to listen to. Not the accent, just the delivery. And for some reason he decided Ursala sounded like Bane from Dark Knight Rises. It's hard not to get hung up on the language because too often it feels like knowing what a "new" word is referring to is important to following the story. Like they're clues to help us realize the world he's living in.
Superficially I know they aren't THAT crucial but I still can't help but ponder them.
Joon wrote: "It's hard not to get hung up on the language because too often it feels like knowing what a "new" word is referring to is important to following the story. Like they're clues to help us realize the world he's living in. Superficially I know they aren't THAT crucial but I still can't help but ponder them."
Same.
I could not rest until I knew where they were located. Does that really matter to the story? Maybe not but that's how I felt.
@Joon and Bonnie - That makes sense.
Perhaps it is just me as this is my second Fantasy book to read but the Tech caught me off-guard. It was introduced so slowly that I just did not pick up on the idea that the story was set in the future tense. Here we are with a village setting, basic, rudimentary at best and I was going down the track of a bit of magi thrown in.Just now at the 3X wedding part and the sudden introduction of the music Tech by Koli was great. Cannot wait to get back to the book. Really enjoying reading everyone's posts as I am learning new ways of approaching this type of reading.
That's great, Clyde! Scifi can spring on you in all sorts of ways, glad this is working for you :)
I'm at chapter 28 at the wedding. Everyone at the wedding got Rickrolled
Rickrolled, heh. That was pretty funny.Another SF book I thought about while reading this was Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.
Some years into their post-apocalypse, one of the conflicts the characters faced was education of the children. One group wanted to continue with "traditional" education. Another said that with the old world gone, it was pointless or even cruel to spend so much time on writing, literature, history, etc... They should shorten the schooling and focus on teaching youngsters practical skills like tools and farming. The community got into quite a dispute about it.
There was a Wii game I played once, I forget what it was called.It was Japanese, post-apocalyptic, had ghosts, and you played as a kid, or a teenager.
Early in the game you find a radio-sort-of-thing; I think, anyway. It was some sort of device, and it talked to you, and helped you on your adventure.
And then it was gone. I forget what happened to it, whether it was destroyed or the battery died, or what, but that was the end of your time with the talking device in the game. I think the kid even buried it.
And it WRECKED me. I googled to see if it was truly gone or if it came back, and I concluded it was gone for good.
And I never finished the game. That was it for me. Done.
All of this is to say that if this book (or series, for that matter) kills off Monono, I'm done. I will DNF the **** out of the book.
(Now granted, I already know there is a period early where Koli loses Monono, but then regains her later, so I'm not too worried about that.)
I absolutely agree with you Joon!
Finished it. Liked it a lot and plan on continuing the series. The language is like a puzzle. I'm still trying to figure out what some of the words and locations refer to.Anyone know what king of animal a needle is supposed to be?
I thought the trees were horrifying .
I feel like 'needle' must just be a new type of animal that developed in Koli's world. Wasn't that the one where a baby was called a "kitten" but then it was described as having a whole lot of teeth that pointed inwards and it wasn't that big but still basically ate an entire person's hand?
It says she got it when it was just a kitten but a lot of baby animals are called kits or kittens. I was reading some speculation that is was a genetically altered weasel.
Bonnie wrote: "60% through.OMG, Koli going around with the DreamSleeve and and talking with Monono in an induction field - it's just like
(Spoiler for Fate of the Fallen)
with Aaslo carrying ..."
Well apart from right near the end he makes an effort to keep others from hearing him, so he's at least got some sense.
Ellen wrote: "I'm at chapter 28 at the wedding. Everyone at the wedding got Rickrolled"
Ha! I think that was my favorite exchange in the book:
"Your friends were angry that you rickrolled them?"
"They was scared because their secrets was knowed."
"Oh. I guess that makes more sense."
Bonnie wrote: "Joon wrote: "It's hard not to get hung up on the language because too often it feels like knowing what a "new" word is referring to is important to following the story. Like they're clues to help u..."
Toward the end when Ursala is listing off all those towns I had to immediately take a break and scour the map to try and figure out what/where they were. There were a few that I couldn't track down, though.
I realized that everyone reading the book got Rickrolled
He stood tall at that wedding and raised the DreamSleeve up in the air, like John Cusack with boombox in "Say Anything."
Amanda wrote: "Bonnie wrote: OMG, Koli going around with the DreamSleeve and and talking with Monono in an induction field - it's just like(Spoiler for Fate of the Fallen)
with Aaslo carrying ..."
Well apart from right near the end he makes an effort to keep others from hearing him, so he's at least got some sense."
If only Kel Kade had written an induction field for Mathias' head, but Magic
The author has got skills. He knows how to raise questions, so many in the beginning I thought maybe he bit off more than someone could chew. But no, it worked fine.I was much more interested in the beginning than I was by the end. As the author is a fine craftsman, I am hard pressed to say why I wasn't more engaged. I thought about it some and it could be different things.
Stakes. Yes, Koli is fighting for his life, yet I never truly felt afraid for him. His exile was underwhelming. I had no doubt he'd get the DreamSleeve back and wasn't surprised about how he did. I found no suspense in the Senlas predicament and felt it was solved easily. His decision to strike out for London didn't ring true for me. (Though, I know why you want to do this from a storyteller's perspective).
There are things to nitpick over as goes details. Like, I was fairly unconvinced all those DSes sat for how long without a Rampart figuring out how to turn them on. There are only so many ways you can throw a switch. But stuff like this I don't feel is worth tarrying over. If it--and things like it--were done in a more satisfying way the resulting action would be the same. I accept these things as is by and large, though I don't like niggles distracting from the narrative.
I ultimately feel lukewarm about the book. It's more visceral than anything. I admire the work put into this. I like some of the wisdom the author weaves into the narrative. I was fond of Ursula and Monono.
I didn't love it while feeling somehow that I wished I did. I wasn't as invested as I perhaps could have been, and I'm uncertain if I will follow up with the next.
I wasn't sorry I bought and read it, but I don't know I'd recommend it.
How's that for wishy-washy?
One very major problem I'm having with the book so far is this:Almost immediately after turning on the DS for the first time, Monono suggests he can watch movies on it. And she does show him images and/or videos of things (like the airplane).
My problem is this: how on earth does THAT not become Koli's obsession as opposed to the music?
The ability to see a bunch of things from "the old world"? That has to take precedence over music every single day.
Even just the image of the plane, I felt like Koli wasn't awestruck enough by it. That should have been like an entire chapter just pondering on that.
If you told me "here, you can watch live video of the pyramids being constructed, or you can listen to a guy playing music from that era", it's not even remotely a contest.
Not enough time to comment at length right now, but I finished this last night and overall I enjoyed this one a lot, gave it 5 stars, probably really 4.5. Will continue the series.I thought it was neat that the adage about technology being indistinguishable from magic really took hold here, with a lot of fantasy type ideas being translated into technology (Ursula as a Gandalf type wandering wizard, Arthurian magic items choosing their proper wielder, etc.)
I did both audio and eye reading on this one and enjoyed going back and forth although the Monono voice I feel like was somewhat problematic in the audio interpretation.
Joon wrote: "One very major problem I'm having with the book so far is this:Almost immediately after turning on the DS for the first time, Monono suggests he can watch movies on it. And she does show him imag..."
I was being nagged by this too. I remember thinking he could learn a great deal from watching. I think I was fabricating my own explanations about why he didn't ask for a vid. Perhaps I told myself that Koli wouldn't know what a "movie" or "tv show" was, so didn't ask for one. But you're right. It's brought up so much that to not even question is too big a hole in the story. Had this been a draft, I would have told the author to cut it (have it only play music) or expand upon it.
It's also possible he didn't want to have it on because then he'd have to be looking at it, which we know was something he was very nervous about. But I agree, I'd have liked to have a quick line about this at the very least.
Monono asked Koli a lot of questions about what he liked and created playlists accordingly. He had experience with music, but none with video.
Allison wrote: "It's also possible he didn't want to have it on because then he'd have to be looking at it, which we know was something he was very nervous about. But I agree, I'd have liked to have a quick line a..."The trouble is that we guess. We shouldn't have to guess. It's like you say, any information is better than none, even if it's an dubious one-liner.
Grumble. If you can't do a Japanese accent, don't try to do a Japanese accent.
What a debacle that whole chapter was.
Just finished reading (not the audio version). It was a solid dystopian book for sure. The highlight for me was how the story was told. I know that not everyone was happy with devolved-linguistic approach, but that was 100% my favorite aspect. I felt like I was at a fireside chat with a stranger telling me his woes, and that was a neat way to read.
Finished reading last night so delayed this comment until I could digest the ending. Overall I enjoyed the reading although at times it became wordy, but not as much as our previous Fate of the Fallen. I as well am torn as whether I would recommend this title even though I am glad I read it myself. Senlas creeped me out. Debating whether I will read the next one, The Trials of Koli, and follow the certainly exciting trek.
I FEEL BAD FOR ELAINE
Joon wrote: "I FEEL BAD FOR ELAINE"Me too. I was sure that would be revisited but it wasn't.
Ellen wrote: "Joon wrote: "I FEEL BAD FOR ELAINE"Me too. I was sure that would be revisited but it wasn't."
Same. Poor Elaine. Maybe in the next part.
Elaine realizes she will never get ammunition. Contemplates her existence. Almost unconsciously, steeped in boredom, she begins to imitate birdsong she hears daily. Birds subsequently begin visiting, perching on her gunbarrel. She and the birds actually begin to communicate!Having untold numbers of wings and talons to do her bidding, she hatches a subtle yet ambitious plan...
Lol Whoops, posted this one in the No Spoiler thread by accident.I'll tell you what else has bugged me about this book, and I hope it's better in the rest of the series, but Monono has a **** battery.
She spends far more time charging than functioning. Honestly it seems like Koli has to spend days charging her for just a few hours of use, which is unacceptable. I mean even now in 2021 that's not the case, much less the future when Monono was conceivably created.
That said, this is already after I've had to suspend my disbelief enough to accept that ANY battery would still work at all after so many years. (I don't imagine we know enough yet about the long term viability of solar cells themselves).
In short, more Monono, less charging please.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Trials of Koli (other topics)The Fall of Koli (other topics)
The Girl with All the Gifts (other topics)
Fate of the Fallen (other topics)
The Trials of Koli (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Kel Kade (other topics)George R. Stewart (other topics)
If you'd like to discuss as you go, please loudly say what part you're on so that people can find it, but do not use spoiler tags. This thread is read at your own risk!
Some questions to get us started:
1. What did you think of Koli's predicament(s)?
2. What did you think of the tech?
3. What did you think of nature?
4. What worked or didn't for you?