BS: Questions with no answers. (Spoilers, finish the book first)

[Skip]

I wonder who gave Siri the viral epilepsy that took half his brain. It really isn't relevant to the story because Siri doesn't care about it, he can't care about anything.

His Mother hints that it was his father's fault, but she considers everything his father's fault, so I would hardly consider it dispositive.

Her use of pills to make Siri bond with her and Jim's reaction to her doing so, make Helen a suspect in this as well. She certainly has many of the hallmarks of someone with Münchausen syndrome by proxy, and Jim seems to care too much about Siri to have hurt him that badly. Of course we only see Jim after Siri is maimed, so it could just be residual guilt.

The third option is that the viral epilepsy is unrelated to either parent and the family dynamics we see play out in the story are only exacerbated by what happened to him.

Feel free add your own questions or to comment on whom you think did Siri wrong.

[Anne]

I never really thought about that. But I had problems getting into the book, so I might have missed some details and just assumed that he just *had* the epilepsy and it wasn't really important where he got it from.

I also figured that the medication really was more of a desperate act to have a "normal" relationship with your emotionless child and having to raise them without their father around. But your right the one scene with the parents in the kitchen really left some question open.

The general problem I had with the book is that it took me a long time to get into the flow of the story and I felt like I missed out on some of the details in the first quarter or so. I was actually thinking of starting right over to get the beginning straight, but then I have so many books I want to read that I can't really justify reading the same one twice in a row.

[Tina]

(spoiler) yikes, i can't seem to get the spoiler tag to work


...and what was it his mother did that she was sorry for before he was born ("something that had developmental consequences")?

[Matthew]

What threw me off though was in this time period of all of this technology, why was such an invasive procedure needed to solve Siri's epilepsy?

[Patrick]

Matthew wrote: "What threw me off though was in this time period of all of this technology, why was such an invasive procedure needed to solve Siri's epilepsy?"

My take on this was that Siri's Epilepsy was before the Firefly's came. Post-event, the world went on a communal tech-rush to deal with a potential shared threat. Think of Pre- and post- WWII technology.

[Skip]

I guess I viewed the "viral epilepsy" as something different than normal epilepsy. While viral encephalitis can lead to epilepsy, the affliction isn't viral. I thought of it as a reaction to someone messing with Siri's brain chemistry, and causing a feedback loop that resulted in the seizures.

That was why I suspected Siri's parents, or one of the terrorist groups mentioned in the book.

Also, Siri was 8 or younger when he was operated on, and Siri is much older in the main part of the book, so the technology of the time may have necessitated surgery.

[Michael]

My take on this was that Siri's Epilepsy was before the Firefly's came.

Didn't this happen not too long before Siri left Earth? Like a few months? Or am I thinking of a different event?

[Anne]

Sodon wrote: "My take on this was that Siri's Epilepsy was before the Firefly's came.

Didn't this happen not too long before Siri left Earth? Like a few months? Or am I thinking of a different event?"

No, that's how I understood it, too. The Fireflies led to Siri being sent off Earth. I don't remember an actual time frame, but the feeling was that it was a couple of months maybe between the Fireflies and takeoff to Rorschach and he had his epilepsy "cured" as a kid.

I also didn't really get the feeling that the technology after the Fireflies really went into an improvement-frenzy. Also, since the time span - at least what I thought it would be - was just a couple of months, there wasn't that much time to go into a tech-rush with actual results coming from it.

[Patrick]

I'm going to have to disagree on this. Siri's ship was "The Second Wave" out, and discussions were had about how far earth had come since it's picture had been taken. The characters even speculated that the aliens might not have been expecting them yet because of their rapid improvements.

[Michael]

I'd have to re-read those sections, I think. I remember both sides!

[aldenoneil]

Sodon wrote: "I remember both sides!"

You're a vampire.

[Dennis]

There had to have been some advanced tech when Siri had the operation, since a hemispherectomy results in (some) unilateral paralysis and blindness in half the visual field, neither of which Siri had immediately post-op in the playground scene. There is also reference to filling up the empty half of his head with machinery.