Jesse > Recent Status Updates

Blah I guess we are back to Mare and Cal so that we can keep fueling the romance thread. This is a lot of maneuvering characters around to set the stage for what I assume is the finale of the book. There are about 250 pages left and this next section is gonna start with the parlay between team Cal and the reluctant Team Maven.

Now that we are in the assault on Harbor Bay it’s LFG time!!! Also, Cameron and Kilorn? Good for them! I really thought that Kilorn was gonna buy it in New Town as a perennial reminder of what happens when “normies” tangle with metahumans but I was surprised… and now that the dynamic has shifted to him no longer pining after Mare, it’s sufferable

Welp; this one has a bloody sanctioned brawl between Evangeline and Mare, which is fun as it’s one of the few ways where the frenemies get along; and it has both an intriguing proposition and a galling internment for Iris. I wish that these characters didn’t keep repeating and re-summarizing things over and over again. The writing is too bland for the topics to register as character quirks.

Elane being coerced into having sex with Evangeline’s brother is one of the most emotionally uncomfortable situations in the novel, and neither of the women can truly dwell on it as they ought to because of their commitment to the principles of the Silver royalty.

Combat scene!!! The raider fight is about what I expected. Otherwise, not a lot to talk about. I mean, Bracken’s (lol) kids are rescued, which will make for complications since we are not quite 1/3 of the way through the book yet.

The Montfort intro is kind of fun! But I imagine that this attack is the work of Iris and Maven to get the Bracken children to Piedmont. I just hope that no one at the Ascendant dies o.O

There is a big huge infodump in Iris’s section. I know that it’s meant to do world-building and get inside her head but Aveyard’s narrative voices all read pretty same-y. Idk but I think Stephen King’s limited omniscient third-person narrators have way more character. I feel like internal monologues should have more tics, more stream-of-consciousness.

lol it’s gonna be betrayals all the way down isn’t it

Of course we were gonna get someone’s POV from Maven’s court. Iris feels about as good a choice as possible. I’m also glad to see Evangeline become part of the core crew as she is voluntold to visit Montfort.

Well uh the broader points are pretty much what I expected with regard to who did what and whether Schafenfreude was really dead. So that’s something!!

Oh no! After two more murders, the first, attempted one took hold. OR DID IT??? I didn’t see a body. I am also inclined to believe that Candour is the murderer as it is the least likely candidate and goes toward the overall narrative of how the names from the dictionary reflect their personalities and whether the Swifts can operate counter to their “given” nature, which is Shenanigan’s conflict.

The book builds up a bunch of self-admittedly circumstantial evidence against Daisy. It’s such an avalanche that, knowing the format, it would be a huge surprise if she WERE. At this point, given that the murderer grabbed Shenanigan’s binoculars out of her backpack, I’m inclined to believe that he or she is one of the regular residents, like Cook or Maelstrom.

So this is a murder mystery. Unfortunately I am mostly used to the Hercule Poirot format, where the POV follows Poirot as they both observe the resulting human drama and amass a bunch of details, the significance of which is mostly held back until the climax. Watching the kids investigate alibis and clues is a bit more, err, straightforward as you know that Hastings is a well-intentioned serial bumbler.

Attempted murder of a Matriarch! As seen on the cover, of course. The Addams vibe is a lot stronger once the reunion begins. The twins, Flora and Fauna, are - I’m sure - an allusion to the conjoined Amor twins. It’s none of my business but given the story’s emphasis on names, the most compelling mystery thus far is Erf’s given name, more than where the treasure is or who tried to kill Scadenfreude.

Sort of an Addams family vibe but less morbid, apart from the bit where each Swift’s tombstone is made about a week or so after their birth. Shenanigan is a fun character because she is a thief and troublemaker and, because this is middle-grade fiction, she is actually allowed to INHABIT being a thief as opposed to it merely being on paper to be brought up or ignored as it suits the author.

Time for another Barnes and Noble impulse purchase read!! There aren’t a great many of these left, I swear

“The Search By the Foundation”

AKA “…Now You Don’t”. I was sort of interested in Arkady’s adventures but Asimov paints with too broad a brush for the latter portions of this story, which are largely Arkady free, to resonate. The cavalcade of revelations that occurs once the conspirators meet together, however, is pretty good. I didn’t suspect the Second Foundation plant’s identity in the least.

OMFG WAS PEEVER THE FIRST SPEAKER???? I thought he might be second foundation but AHHHH

The thrust of Asimov’s Space Opera is not as compelling as Dune but, like, Dune is fuckin’ fantastic. And came some twenty or so years after this. Also, this particular section - with people trying to reason out what the Second Foundation anticipates - has some major WIFOM vibes.

The main protagonist of this story is a fourteen year old girl who is the granddaughter of Bayta of Foundation and Empire. It’s a weird vibe given how she insists that she is an adult and contemplates how she will treat handsome older men when she is, well, older. She has pretty strong Teen Detective vibes given how she is very clever and intelligent and stowed away on the ship that precipitates the adventure.

“Search By the Mule”

AKA “Now You See It…”

A galactic travelogue that ends in a long battle of duplicity where aspects of the Second Foundation are revealed. It’s not exactly triumphant as far as the totality of victory but it’s interesting to see the absolute long game of the Second Foundation, to wait until the Mule’s imminent natural death and then stand by while the Seldon plan reasserts itself.

This is a dry telling of How the Mule Tried to Find the Second Foundation. The asides that end each chapter are distracting, but they sort of give you an idea as to what was truly behind, say, something like Bel’s epiphany as to the location. I guess that the emotional story is with Pritcher wrestling intellectually with his being emotionally controlled. I assume that we are leading to either his freedom or death.

“The Mule”

Asimov appreciably includes a female main character at the climax of this story. Bayta and Toran had glimpses at the weirdness but just as Toran’s suspicion was clouded by Bayta’s sentimentality, their positions reversed when it mattered the most. It’s not lost on me that The Mule’s vulnerability was his own emotions regarding a woman.

At this exact point, Asimov is done obscuring the true identity of the Fool, with Toran beginning to suspect his purported charge, particularly once he spent time alone on the enemy ship. Asimov at least threw the format for a loop as the crisis that Seldon anticipated foundered under the might of the Mule. Having known for a while what “Magnifico” was up to, I’m mostly strung along by the WHY of The Mule.

There is a lot of mystery surrounding The Mule, but Asimov gave it away at the beginning of the story. It’s pretty clear that the clown / acrobat on the beach was The Mule in disguise and for reasons yet to be explained wished to be brought to Terminus, presumably as a pretense for his forces to start a war with the Foundation and as a means of placing him on the same planet as the Mayor.