Finished the series last week - thoughts and spoilers
Had a good week of letting it all sink in and one of the first things I thought was “I should have bought the books so I can reread them right away, or at least look up things, now everything is still fresh”.
First I was a bit divided on the ending. I was expecting/hoping an ending like FoH - super epic, with an insanely deep impact ( >!Blowing up the farcaster network changed the entire way everyone lived!< ) - but later on I realised >!Aenea’s death!< really did change everything, just on a longer timescale.
Lots of people here are a bit turned off by the love story between Raul and Aenea, but it didn’t affect me. But I should say I read it in Dutch and seeing here that in the English version the term “kiddo” is used a lot, I get it. In Dutch, they use “meid” and that has a less juvenile sound to it. Was it “meisje”, then it would have had the same vibe. But generally it was made clear in the story a few times, once things got more “intense”, Aenea was 21. So yeah, ok.
I love how the >!cruciform!< got a central role later on in the story.
The story line about Moneta and Kassad didn’t have that big of an impact as I expected, but it was a good time bending side story.
There was a lot of poetry which, I must admit, I mostly skimmed over quite rapidly.
The metaphysical angle about Empathy was a lot to take in the first half, because it felt quite vague. Glad to see that got more context in the later half.
How did Raul suddenly realise >!A. Bettik!< was >!an Observer!< after he said something seemingly random during their goodbye? It felt a bit bolted on there to close a loop, but maybe I missed some subtleties.
Curious to hear your ideas, fellow pilgrims.
See you later, alligator.