Fiction Fans

The Escher Man by T. R. Napper

• Episode 169

Share episode

Your hosts discuss The Escher Man by T. R. Napper. They consider what makes a story better fit for a movie format. They also talk about characters they're emotionally invested in, family dynamics, and cybernetic enhancements.


Find us on Discord / Support us on Patreon

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License



Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words, too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah.

Lilly:

And in this episode, we will be discussing The Esher Man by T. R. Knapper. But first, our quick introduction questions. Sarah, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:

I planted some lettuce.

Lilly:

Oh! It's like November. I guess that doesn't matter for you.

Sara:

it does not matter for me.

Lilly:

Today.

Sara:

it, it does not get that cold in the Bay Area really, and also I can't plant lettuce in the summer because it is too hot. It bolts immediately.

Lilly:

Well, that's a very exciting and I won't complain about your weather. I made technically five Variations on pumpkin pie this week, in one great frantic burst of cooking. I wanted to do a new recipe for Thanksgiving this year, but, I did not want Thanksgiving to be the first time I actually did the recipe, so, I did a bunch of tests.

Sara:

Probably valid.

Lilly:

Yes, I am glad I did. They all would have been fine, although half of them just tasted like cream and cinnamon, so, I'm glad I tested them, and now I know.

Sara:

How did the recipes differ?

Lilly:

So, One of them, which also was the winner, is a true chiffon pumpkin pie. So you make like a custard with the pumpkin and then whip it or fold it into whipped egg whites. The other two recipe bases were like a whipped cream that you folded the pumpkin mix into. One of them used vanilla pudding and the other one used, like, cream cheese, so kind of like a cheesecake y base. Except both of those recipes called for Cool Whip. And I was like, but what if I used real whipped cream, though? And, again, glad I did the test, because in the blind taste test, the majority of people did choose the Cool Whip version, which I was not expecting. Yeah. Mm hmm. So, there was me assuming that obviously using straight whipped cream would be better. That was not the case.

Sara:

What is the sugar content of Cool Whip versus straight whipped cream?

Lilly:

Well, I added sugar when I whipped the cream. This is not truly straight whipped cream. Because I was trying to be as close as possible. So fairly close.

Sara:

Interesting.

Lilly:

Some people liked the pudding base the best, but I think that just tasted like cinnamon, and so I vetoed it. I actually like pumpkin pie. Anyway, I'll be making a chiffon pie in approximately one hour and thirty minutes, or however long this recording takes.

Sara:

Well, we better get to it so that you can start making your pie.

Lilly:

Yes. Yes. And all the other ones. Sarah, what are you drinking tonight?

Sara:

So in this book the main character double fists a lot of beer and whiskey.

Lilly:

Yes, shot and a beer.

Sara:

Yes, in honor of that, I am having a small dram of whiskey and cider, because I don't like beer.

Lilly:

I also was like, you know what, this book, I'm gonna go whiskey. And then, about, I actually wrote the page number down, I was so delighted. I think it was halfway through, or a little over halfway through. He actually calls out Maker's Mark by name, which is the brand of whiskey I had in the house. So I was like Shit! I am so much more on theme than I thought. I am not drinking it straight from the bottle because I have stuff to do.

Sara:

And you're also not drinking three quarters of a bottle tonight?

Lilly:

No. And it is cold as balls, so I am drinking it as a hot toddy.

Sara:

Lovely.

Lilly:

Yes, it is. And have you read anything else lately?

Sara:

I have not, but I'm looking forward to being on a plane in a couple of days where I will do so much reading and we'll have So many answers to this question next episode.

Lilly:

Delightful. I have been on a fanfiction tear. I've gotten back, sucked back into the world of Teen Wolf. It is so easy to just read them. Consume them with my eyeballs. No thoughts, just romance. That's all I have going on right now. Sometimes you need a break, you know?

Sara:

It's very true.

Lilly:

This book was very different vibes from the Teen Wolf fanfiction.

Sara:

Yes. Yes. Not that I've read a lot of Teen Wolf fanfiction, but I can imagine very different from this.

Lilly:

Yes. Well, not always, but the ones I'm reading.

Sara:

Yeah. I have to say, I maybe would have enjoyed Teen Wolf fanfiction a little more than I enjoyed this book.

Lilly:

This book was very much not for you

Sara:

It was, it was not for me. I also think that some of my complaints about the book are valid quality complaints. And not just, I didn't like it. But a portion of it was just This was not the book for me.

Lilly:

Yeah you have a note that you think it should be a campy sci fi action movie. And I think I agree with you.

Sara:

Yeah, like, this is, this is the kind of story that I think really would have worked very well as a campy sci fi action movie, where you can turn off your brain, enjoy the explosions and the, like, blood spurts and all of that, and just Like, vibe for two hours or an hour and a half or however long the movie is. But as a book, it tries to make you work a little harder and I don't think it succeeds at that.

Lilly:

Yeah, this book definitely has the, hmm, overtures of a great action story with the underpinnings of, oh, let's so throw some thoughtfulness in there about, you know, memory and augmentations and senses of self and identity. But I think it kind of info dumped those too much. And so it felt like a very abrupt break in the action, like an aside. It was like, oh, okay, we're talking about this now.

Sara:

Yeah, like, there, there are a lot of really cool concepts to this book, and I think that the overarching plot of the Endgame and his memory issues and the, the memory issues that have been introduced into society are really neat and, and could be really compelling, but there's so much just straight up telling in this book, and not a lot of showing, that I just don't know what to say. Didn't care about any of it in the end,

Lilly:

I think if there had been a lighter touch with those parts, or if it had been sort of woven into the action plot a little bit more, instead of like, entirely separate scenes.

Sara:

Yeah. It, it needed to be more integrated. Like it felt very separate and not really cohesive. And if it had been more just more involved in all of the action scenes, I think it would've worked much better.

Lilly:

I think this is a great place for me to shoehorn Lily's theory, three pillar theory of genre, because I think it really gets at what we're noticing in this piece. So we have, right, there's the setting, there's the plot, and there's the theme of a novel. And in this book, the setting, cyberpunk, super cool, lots of fun technology, lots of fun fight scenes. The theme, we had those very abrupt pieces of rumination over memory and identity and sense of self and how those relate to the technology. Also very cyberpunk. But the plot was not. Which is fine, but it really did not gel with the theme in that way.

Sara:

Yeah. The, the plot was very much. An action plot, in a way that felt at odds with what Knapper wanted to do with the setting and theme.

Lilly:

Yeah, I agree completely. I

Sara:

And there's also a whole heck of a lot of violence in this book, which I don't mind necessarily, but Some of it just felt unnecessary, like, we see at the very beginning, we see Endgame break into a dude's house and kill him, and that goes nowhere, it doesn't add anything to the plot, it doesn't tell us anything new about Endgame's character, I mean, Or rather, it doesn't tell us anything about Endgame's character that we don't get from, like, subsequent scenes. So it just felt gratuitous.

Lilly:

mean, the book was using that scene to introduce the reader experiencing the same sequence of events from different perspectives. Or, from Endgame's perspective, before and after Memory Wipe. So, like, I think it was trying to introduce a very core mechanic of the novel.

Sara:

But we get that in later scenes that do more for the book.

Lilly:

Okay, but you can't say it did nothing.

Sara:

Okay. It, well, no, that's, but that's why I reframed that sentence. It did nothing that other scenes don't do, too.

Lilly:

Yeah, okay. We have a brief words are weird intermission here before we talk about real things that actually matter. What the fuck is a singlet? I googled it and the internet said it's either a unitard, also some Hilarious model choices for singlet e commerce pictures. I felt like a 13 year old googling boobs. Except they were for bulges.

Sara:

I feel like it's the, that kind of garment that wrestlers wear.

Lilly:

Or is it a tank top? Okay. So yeah, it's either a unitard or a tank top. Sorry, I got distracted talking about bulges. And I think that's a matter of, right, just like, where you are. And I know that Endgame, the main character is Australian. So maybe if I knew which version was used in Australia, I could figure out which one was meant in this book.

Sara:

I'm pretty sure that Australia uses it to mean a unitard.

Lilly:

Not a tank top? Okay. Anyway Chrome Linfu is introduced as wearing a singlet, and I was like, I have no idea what mental image I'm supposed to have right now. This could go very dramatically in two different ways.

Sara:

I mean, I feel like a singlet is a really silly garment for a gangster to be wearing, just in general.

Lilly:

She had fighting to do.

Sara:

But, there's so many guns in this book, wouldn't you want something that, like, protects your, your arms and legs? I get, I,

Lilly:

cannot answer.

Sara:

like, I understand that their clothing, they have this spider iron or whatever that's super protective. So if you're wearing clothing that has a spider iron, I don't know body or whatever, that itself can be fine. So, like, I'm not a singlet. I feel like maybe look silly, but at least It would protect her, presumably. But it leaves so much open skin!

Lilly:

I think that is the rule of cool, and if you look neat, then it doesn't matter.

Sara:

I'm still not convinced she looks neat, too, though. But a lot of this book goes on rule of cool.

Lilly:

yes, absolutely. Endgame, the main character, has a lot of one liners.

Sara:

Like I said, it would be a great movie. Where you're not actually supposed to think too deeply about the plot, you don't have to care for any of the characters, you can just enjoy the action.

Lilly:

One character that I found myself going back to over and over again, and I'm still not really sure where I've landed on her. Jian is Endgame's estranged wife, ex wife. It's not super clear what their relationship is at this moment. They definitely don't live together. And what in the world is going on with that character?

Sara:

She's very one dimensional she's there to be supportive, and someone that Endgame is trying to protect, and she doesn't really have a character beyond that.

Lilly:

Yeah, her, I mean, his, his family, right? Endgame and Jeanne and their family, it feels like she exists, she's like the perfect definition of a lampshade. This woman could be replaced in the narrative with a lampshade and nothing could change.

Sara:

yes.

Lilly:

She exists only to provide consequences, right? Like, if Endgame fucks up, she might get hurt. And that's it. That's all. That's all she's got.

Sara:

Yeah, she's just there to be. Yeah,

Lilly:

You've heard the phrase wife guy? Some guys are considered wife guys because they're just like all about their wives and that's all they've got going on It's

Sara:

have now.

Lilly:

used as a compliment to be honest. So the way I described it was not very good But John was a husband girl

Sara:

I just, I mean, I know, I know that she's not really a fleshed out character, but she is so okay with all of the violence and terrible stuff that happens in her life because of her relationship with Endgame. And as far as we know, she doesn't come from any kind of criminal background. So her being that chill with it just doesn't make sense. You

Lilly:

And she has two young children. She's got two daughters under 10 And she's just like oh, yeah, you're just carrying around a machine gun. That's fine

Sara:

Yeah, all I care about is how long it's been since we've had sex.

Lilly:

Girls got priorities. What can I say? You

Sara:

I guess. I just, yeah, I, I feel like she could have been a really interesting character had she been a character.

Lilly:

Well, I have more opinions about her, but I think they're probably all spoiler conversation. So, before we get to that conversation. Who should read this book? I really think if you're looking for a combination of John Wick and Johnny Mnemonic,

Sara:

I don't know what of those references, so I can't, I can neither agree nor disagree.

Lilly:

yeah, just know that I'm right. In your heart, know that I am correct.

Sara:

Okay. I've also never seen John Wick, but the comparison feels apt. Ha ha ha.

Lilly:

Yeah I am correct. And I'm just like, to further your point from earlier, on in the book, Endgame gets an enhancement where It's like forced synesthesia and he experiences extreme pain instead as hearing an ACDC song in his head. And that is just, like, so perfectly engineered for a movie.

Sara:

Yes! It, this, this book has so many visuals that would be great as visuals, or, and that's not necessarily a visual, but

Lilly:

that a vid I know, I was gonna

Sara:

not.

Lilly:

that.

Sara:

But it has, it has so many, there are so many aspects that would translate really, really well to a visual format, yeah, a video medium and that just kind of fall flat. When they're left on the page.

Lilly:

I agree. But it actually did not bother me nearly as much as I think it bothered you. Partially because I was fine with just rolling with the crazy violence. It was a really fast read. This isn't that short of a book. It's like 350 pages. So, like, it's decent standard length. It's not a long book, but it's not a short book.

Sara:

I had to push myself to read the first, like, 200 pages or so. But after that, I would agree that it went by pretty quickly.

Lilly:

Yeah, I mean, I think I read it in like five or six hours, and I was not even consciously speed reading. Like, I finished early,

Sara:

I will say it's got a really great setting. So it's set, a bunch of it is set in Macau, and like, that's really well realized and visualized. I liked that. So if you're looking for that in your book, this'll do that.

Lilly:

and I enjoyed the action. I just feel like it stalled out in some moments. So yeah, if you want more of a, oh, if you definitely want gritty, I would definitely say this book is gritty.

Sara:

Hmm, I guess I would agree with you. A lot of the grit feels very superficial to me though. It, it just, like, all of the gratuitous violence, it doesn't go anywhere.

Lilly:

Well, it's not grim. It's gritty. Very

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

It's not that upsetting because you're just like, oh, someone else lost their hand? Okay.

Sara:

I

Lilly:

Honestly, it reminded me quite a bit of Fourth Wing.

Sara:

can see that. Very different books, but I can see that.

Lilly:

My reading experience was pretty similar.

Sara:

I think if you are able to turn your brain off during this book, you'll probably enjoy it quite a bit.

Lilly:

This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by Fiction Fans!

Sara:

That's us. We really appreciate our patrons because otherwise we fund this podcast entirely ourselves.

Lilly:

Patrons can find weekly bonus content, monthly exclusive episodes, and have free access to our biannual zine, Solstitia.

Sara:

You can find all of that and more at patreon. com slash fictionfanspod. Thank you for all of your support.

Lilly:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers. So one thing that happens to Endel pretty early on, after he's reunited with Jeanne and his two daughters. Surprise! There's two of them. Because his memories have been so fucked up by his employer, Jian, like, gives him her memories. Not as in she doesn't have them anymore, but like, lets him experience her memories of their relationship. And then there's sort of like, feedback loop? That's not quite the right word.

Sara:

There's like a bleed over into his psyche where he can't necessarily separate out what's him and what are her memories. So, sometimes he will react as if he is her. And I really, really liked that. Like, that was

Lilly:

that part, yes!

Sara:

was great. And then it gets abruptly taken away by the deus ex machina memory person.

Lilly:

The omissioner, which was also a very cool phrase for that job.

Sara:

Yes. the concept of that job, really neat. But the end result of, The main omissioner we see was again, kind of just there to do plot stuff.

Lilly:

I liked Jian the most when Endel was trying to figure out, like, what the fuck was going on and like, Slapping guys hitting on girls at bars? Very good!

Sara:

Yes, that was excellent. There are some moments in this book that are so good and there are some concepts in this book that are so good. And it just, I was really disappointed that it doesn't, the book, the whole book is not like that.

Lilly:

Okay, so Jian needs to get a life, first of all. I'm being mean. She finds her husband. I, okay. I cannot articulate why it bothers me so much that she finds endgame at the end of the book. He's not even endgame anymore. He's negotiated a whole new identity for himself. He's had, like, years renewed to his lifespan because of fun sci fi, don't ask questions. And he has a job as an MMA fighter, so he can still, like, be violent, but he's not in a dangerous situation anymore. He's not a mob enforcer, basically. And so Jian finding him, because presumably she saw him doing MMA fights on TV, like, logically does not bother me at all. And, yeah, they were in love. Of course, if you had the opportunity to find your husband, you would go find him again. But it emotionally fell so flat for me.

Sara:

I think it's because it doesn't feel earned. We don't see a lot of evidence that they're in love. We hear it a lot. And we see a lot of endgame being in love. But we don't get anything from Jian. And, Honestly, the book doesn't give us any reasons why she should be in love with him.

Lilly:

Yeah, even when they're reminiscing about their relationship, it's like, I called you my cowboy and we went out dancing. It's like, oh, you could call anyone your cowboy, actually. So if that's what you like about him, don't worry, that's replaceable.

Sara:

There are other men from Australia in the world.

Lilly:

I, like, Jian rubbed me so the wrong way, because, yeah, there was nothing, like, wrong with her actions. Transcribed It just felt so blech.

Sara:

Well,

Lilly:

Oh, actually, there were definitely things wrong with her actions because you don't bring children around all of that bullshit.

Sara:

I mean, like you say, she's basically just a sexy lampshade.

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

And I think that's probably why you didn't like her. And I think that's probably why the end feels flat because she's. One dimensional and there for Endgame to experience consequences when he fucks up, which is often.

Lilly:

Yeah. I mean, even, there's a moment where she like, I don't know, she hits someone with a car and like, saves Endgame in a really clutch moment. And like, Instead of thinking, hey, badass lady, participating in the plot, I was like, oh, her again.

Sara:

Part of that might have had something to do with the fact that she had her two kids in the car with her.

Lilly:

Mmm, yeah, actually, I'm wondering if that is part of why I was so annoyed with her.

Sara:

And there were, there was a lot of gun violence, not just in the book, but in that particular scene.

Lilly:

Yeah, maybe she should have just run and left him.

Sara:

Yes!

Lilly:

There is another female character in this book who I had very mixed feelings about, which was Chrome Lin Fu. She is a scary badass. She's introduced as, like, the only person, the only other person in the gang that Endgame wouldn't want to take in a fight. Like, that's a pretty good intro, even if she is wearing a unitard.

Sara:

And she has the skills to back it up too. We see her fight and yeah, she's pretty badass.

Lilly:

She is. And she's kind of just a lackey at the beginning, but then she comes back in the middle and you're like, ooh, she's involved in this conspiracy. And then She's just also in love with Endgame?

Sara:

Yeah, I have, a couple of questions about her. So the first is that she and Endgame were apparently, like, very high up in the mob, and then they try to go against Long, who's like, The top dog, and fail, and Endgame gets his memories wiped, but she doesn't? And she is clearly the brains of the two of them? Or, presumably, she is now and

Lilly:

what Long

Sara:

then. Yeah, so like, why would you not wipe her memory too?

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Like, that just doesn't make sense to me. And then the other bit is, originally, I was like, yeah, she definitely has a crush on Endgame and that's pretty lame. And then they have this semi manufactured relationship in the sense that Endgame has had his memories wiped and rewritten so that he thinks that, They are in a relationship, and she just kind of goes along with it, but she says that she is not even interested in men, so why would she go along with it? I don't know. Very mixed signals from her.

Lilly:

I actually noted that section down because I was like, Wait, so she does like him, or she doesn't like him, or she's saying she doesn't like him, and I don't know if I believe that.

Sara:

Since this book was so straightforward about everything I kind of just took her at her word, because there's no indication that we shouldn't.

Lilly:

did we have something before I met my family? We had everything. We were together. Lin looked up at me with open contempt. Is that what you think it's about? Pussy? Dick? God, usually I don't even like men. So I do think that they were together. She's just saying she didn't go through all of this due to romantic feelings for him. They were coincidental.

Sara:

Maybe.

Lilly:

Is kind of how I read that. Well, The other reason, I didn't mark down a page number for this, but the other reason why I think they were together is because of the way Lin talks about Jian.

Sara:

I can see that. I mean, she, she does give off some very jealous vibes.

Lilly:

And she's arguing that her main motivation is power and she needs endgame in order to attain that power. And him wanting to get out of the business because he wants to settle down and have a family. means she can't use him. Like, I would believe that that is her main motivation, but I do think that they were together. Also, just because everyone's obsessed with Endgame!

Sara:

Yeah. If, if they were together, I think that there could have been a more interesting way of, like, showing all of that.

Lilly:

Yeah. Oh, or like, if he was getting memories of her and his wife mixed up, that could have been very heartbreaking.

Sara:

Yeah, like, there, are ways to make it good, I just don't think this was it.

Lilly:

Well, she's not the only one head over heels for this Obviously, we also have Jeanne, the We're told, like, upper middle class, like, fairly well off woman who decides to slum it with a low level gangster,

Sara:

Well, high level, high level gangster originally, but

Lilly:

think she knew that.

Sara:

I don't think she knew that either.

Lilly:

Yeah. We have Chrome Lynn, who, whatever is going on with her, There's also HappyJune, who is one of the other high level gangsters that we meet in Vietnam. Endgame doesn't know it, but apparently that they were like really good friends before everything. And so HappyJune was like, I'm not going to tell Long that I found Endgame, and he'll just like hang out with me as one of my lackeys now.

Sara:

I had an issue with that, too. Not that they were best friends before Endgame lost his memories, but we're told that at the very end, after June is dead, and there is no indication throughout, like, the entire portion of book in which he appears, that they were best friends. Except for he inexplicably promotes Endgame to his second in command within, like, five minutes of meeting him.

Lilly:

There's

Sara:

it!

Lilly:

And he doesn't rat him out to Long. That's one of the things that's like, while Endgame is in Vietnam, he has written notes to himself because his memories are all goofy. And at one point, one of the notes that we the readers see is, June knows who you are, and it is only a matter of time before he tells Long that you're here. And that never happens.

Sara:

Right, but like, that could have been explained away by so many things. It didn't have to be they were best friends, and there's nothing else in their interactions that even hint at them having a past relationship.

Lilly:

Yeah, no, but I'm just saying that that, that was a hint. There wasn't nothing.

Sara:

Okay, it was, but I needed more. Like, I

Lilly:

I also would have, yeah.

Sara:

kind of, just some kind of thing beyond that. Like, June knows his, I don't know, favorite Whiskey or whatever,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

like just something. I wanted something that I could look back on once I got that information and be like, Oh, the text was telling me this the whole time. I just didn't connect the dots.

Lilly:

Mm hmm.

Sara:

And there were no dots to connect. There was one dot.

Lilly:

Well, one of June's other lackeys is The Axe, and he was probably my favorite character in this book.

Sara:

I liked, I liked the axe.

Lilly:

His hero worship for Endgame, I guess makes sense because Endgame is so certifiably badass. And like, such a good fighter. But the axe carries around an actual battle axe? So good!

Sara:

I do kind of feel like his character went nowhere. I mean, he's introduced. He has hero worship and then he dies. And he's basically there for Endgame to feel bad about his death. He was great, like don't get me wrong, but I wanted his character to do more. Just for the story in general.

Lilly:

Well, yeah, I also wanted more of the axe, but I think just because I liked him, I thought he was charming and goofy in a fun way. I really liked their conversation about social media, although I did not feel like it was in the right place in this book. The axe is showing. Endgame, his ego feed, which also, great sci fi social media name, A love it,

Sara:

That was a very cool concept. I did like that.

Lilly:

And Endgame is like, dude, People are going to use this to track you down. You're a gangster. You cannot have a public persona. And the ex says, no, no, it's fine. Like, I've, like, altered my face a little bit so that facial recognition won't work and all of that. And when then endgame goes immediately to, oh, so it's not really you? What's the point of, like, presenting this false you? It's just a bunch of fake people interacting with other fake people. It was very, like, boomer. Boomer vibes. And it, like There's almost something interesting there, especially with the rise of like, AI controlled social media profiles. I don't know if you've had the experience of stumbling into a Reddit thread and you're like, this is robots talking to each other. These are not people.

Sara:

I have not had that experience. Yeah,

Lilly:

we've been doing lately, ask me why all of them are like, this microwave has the best value, and it heats fr like, just, so, such bland marketing speak, and you can tell it's like, this is a owned Reddit account that is just trying to drum up positive comments, yeah. Anyway. So there is an interesting conversation there around, like, what is the point of these social medias if it's just AI, like, fake content, generated content, not real people actually communicating with each other. But the way it is approached with, well, you're using altered pictures of yourself and that makes it not really you. And it's like, my dude, have you not heard of avatars? using a fake picture of yourself does not mean all of your thoughts and opinions that you're posting are fake. Like, you can still make human connections without your real face. So it, didn't quite get there for me. But I liked that the axe pushed back. Cause I like the axe.

Sara:

I, the axe, the axe was great. I liked the axe. I wanted more from the axe, but I did like what we got.

Lilly:

Well, do you want to talk about Long and how he managed to Pull some absolute bullshit.

Sara:

Yeah, so, long, is the head gangster the head of the triad or whatever. And eventually we learn that before the novel started, Endgame had gone too long and said, I want out of this business. I, you know, I've been your enforcer. I've been your number two. but I'm ready to call it quits. I want to go and have a life that's not centered around violence. And Long says, Okay, I will modify your memory so that you don't remember any of this. Leave it in my hands, you know, we'll get you out. And

Lilly:

go wrong?

Sara:

why would Endgame trust Long to do this? Like, I know that his memory is shitty, that is something that has been kind of, Built into society by this point. Through their use, their reliance on these memory pins. Which is really, a really cool concept. But just because his memory is shitty doesn't mean he has to be dumb as fuck.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Like, this, and the whole novel. The whole novel could have not happened. Had he just not made this one very stupid decision.

Lilly:

Yeah. I feel like the book tries to address it, because when Lin reveals this to Endgame, he's like, why would I do that? And there's not really an answer.

Sara:

There's, there's not!

Lilly:

Yeah. Okay, my favorite part of this whole book, though, was definitely the conspiracy city of Zhuantang.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

That was great. I feel like if this book had been Zhuantang, I would have been behind it 100%. It was like the, the Macau gangster stuff on beginning and end, like bookending it, that just kind of like, didn't work.

Sara:

well, I, I think that stuff in Zhuantang feels much more cohesive than everything else and also has a better payoff. As you see Endgame investigate this mystery and try to, like, do his best to protect his family. Like, it all works.

Lilly:

Especially because this is a story about memory, it can be told, like, out of chronological order. The whole novel should have been Zhuantang, with maybe, like, memory snippets or flashbacks to the stuff earlier. But if the whole thing had been him, in this weird resort city that actually sucks, and trying to find out what's going on, like, where the tourists are going and what this, City is actually four. It would have been, I think, a much tighter novel. And we still could have gotten the, like, Oh, he was actually, used to be really high up in this gang, and He has a family, a secret family he doesn't really remember. All of those things could have still been tied into it. I just don't know. Don't think I needed to see all of the events in Macau. Those should have all been background.

Sara:

Yeah. And I think also, you could have used that, not that I think this, this, novel should have been a duology, but like, if you still wanted to have that plot, you could have set that up for the plot of a sequel where he deals with like bringing down the syndicate in Macau and all of that.

Lilly:

Yeah. Yeah, I think if it had started in Xuantang and that had been our introduction, and this book is kind of divided into parts, right? So if it had been like part one, Xuantang, part two, The Aftermath, I think that would have worked

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

really well.

Sara:

Yeah. I agree. And

Lilly:

mystery. I'm invested. The professor was very charming.

Sara:

I, I liked the professor and I think that the scene at the end. of this section where he finds out, where he solves the mystery. He learns that all of the people who are going missing in this resort city have been killed and the people who are the gangs who are in charge of it are all like stealing their money and funneling it to themselves and they're keeping everyone from noticing by basically having these AI replicas of the people who they killed post on their ego feed and, and interact with people that way.

Lilly:

Yeah, they're basically training every single student. Like, AI models off of their existing ego feed to continue the ego feed, so it appears as if they're still alive and active. That is excellent!

Sara:

that was so good. And we see when Endgame realizes this, and he realizes that the professor has been killed and now is just this AI ego feed, he has a conversation with the AI. And that's a really moving, like, scene. And I loved that. It was so good. And I wish that the whole book had been that good.

Lilly:

Yeah, I think if we had just gotten Zhuantang, if we had spent more time there, and even if that had been interjected with, like I said, more of these memory issues seeing snippets of his wife, maybe seeing snippets of Chrome Lin, not knowing which ones are which, like, and having that grow over his time in this resort city also more of the axe, because that's where the axe was.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

It would have been, yeah, I would have liked it a lot more.

Sara:

Yeah, I agree. And like, we get to see some of the native residents of the city, and they all have had the same childhood memory implanted in them, and learning that, like, that is so good! And

Lilly:

that was absolutely chilling.

Sara:

and, so, learning about the conspiracy that way and learning that these people are trying to build a brain ship that will allow them to implant memories into the community, the, like, the world at large, not just this one city. That was excellent.

Lilly:

Yeah. I think this book was trying to half ass five things instead of whole assing one thing.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

And that whole ass should have been on Zhuanteng.

Sara:

Yes. I, I think focusing more on Zhuantang and reordering the book a little bit, restructuring it would have made it much stronger.

Lilly:

Yeah. Because I really love that part. I'm just such a sucker for a mystery, especially a weird sci fi mystery.

Sara:

And the mystery was done really well.

Lilly:

Yes, and it's like a everything's a little bit sinister because you don't know what's going on. Oh, yeah, that part was really good

Sara:

The payoff also was definitely worth it.

Lilly:

oh, yeah, and Touching emotionally touching because I was invested in the professor's character

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

so I would say that part makes the book worth it.

Sara:

I don't know if I would go that far, but I did.

Lilly:

violence more than you do

Sara:

That's true. I did, I did like that bit of the book. And the violence in that bit of the book, while being the same levels of gratuitous, didn't bother me because it, it felt more connected with what was going on.

Lilly:

yeah, it was all the whole part that whole section was just more cohesive

Sara:

Yeah, it was just much more tightly plotted.

Lilly:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara:

Come disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky Instagram and TikTok at fictionfanspod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod at gmail. com.

Lilly:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Sara:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.

Sara:

Bye!