Fiction Fans

Future's Edge by Gareth L. Powell

• Episode 199

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Your hosts read Future's Edge by Gareth L. Powell. They talk about post-apocalyptic near futures, love triangles where no one is wrong, and stories that might work better as movies.


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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, and today we will be talking about Futures Edge by Gareth l Powell.

Lilly:

but first, our quick five minute introduction. What is something good that happened recently? Because no matter what, there's always something good that has happened.

Sara:

Yeah, I this so. This is a hard question for me this week because the last seven days have been pretty shit. Listeners who follow us on Blue Sky will know that I had to put my pug Mr. Squeak to sleep on Friday. If you have heard Pug snores on the podcast, chances are it has been Mr. Squeak because. She's not my only pug, but she was by far my loudest pug. So the week kind of really sucked a lot, but I do actually have an answer for this. I went for a run this morning. It's the first time I've gone for a run in two months. And. It was nice to be running again, so that is my good thing.

Lilly:

Good for you. I did no intentional exercise, but I went camping. Now when I go camping, I don't like go backpacking like you do. I go car camping.

Sara:

Yes, different camping. I'll try not to be too much of a snob.

Lilly:

but from the car to the tent to the fire pit. Was enough circuits that I got many more steps than I usually do on a typical day. And when I say I just got back from camping, I mean, when Sarah texted me to start recording, I was still in the car.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

I smell like campfire. I have not taken a shower in a very long time, and we're just gonna roll with it.

Sara:

Look, you can't smell over a podcast. It's fine.

Lilly:

the technology is coming. it was great and I, it's like so much time, just downtime, like for reading and we play board games with our friends. It's mostly a lot of indoor activities, but like outside, which is fantastic.

Sara:

you, you do this with a bunch of friends, right? Like it's not just you and your husband,

Lilly:

Yeah, we go down early, so like the first day and a half is just us. But then by today, by the time we left, there were like 15 people there.

Sara:

Jesus. That's a lot of people

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

do.

Lilly:

Of, you know, him and his family, like his brothers and friends and friends and friends, and it's quite a bit of fun.

Sara:

way more people than I want. When I am camping.

Lilly:

You hit a point of zen where you're just like, I am filthy. Hello, perfect stranger. We are filthy and drunk together, and that's just fine.

Sara:

You and I have very different camping experiences, which is fine.

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

But we have very different things that we want out of our camping.

Lilly:

I mean, isolation is also nice. That's why we go down early. So I want both.

Sara:

I, I just want the one,

Lilly:

Well, what are you drinking tonight?

Sara:

I am drinking apple cider. Because a friend came over earlier today to keep me company because she. Rightly thought that I did not wanna be on my own and we started drinking early and that is what I am still drinking.

Lilly:

So hard apple cider.

Sara:

Yes, the alcoholic kind.

Lilly:

I am drinking ginger beer. The good kind that makes you sneeze, so warnings in advance.

Sara:

Have you ever tried making your own ginger beer?

Lilly:

No, but that is high on the list of projects for this fall. And have you read anything good lately?

Sara:

No,

Lilly:

Alright.

Sara:

not at all.

Lilly:

I also have been doing primarily podcast reading.

Sara:

I think you're actually ahead of me in podcast reading, to be honest.

Lilly:

I think so our next book. Not episode chronologically, but that we have to read is very short, so you'll be fine.

Sara:

I, I have not started reading it, but I'm also not working tomorrow. So

Lilly:

There you go.

Sara:

it works.

Lilly:

Future's edge.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

this was a, i, I mean, would you say post-apocalyptic? It's post-apocalyptic.

Sara:

I think it's post-apocalyptic. It is. A book that is set both after humanity has kind of gone through a climate crisis, but also after humanity has gone through a crisis of aliens attacking and,

Lilly:

Uh, getting exploded.

Sara:

yeah. Killing all of the Earth.

Lilly:

Earth being obliterated. Yeah.

Sara:

Yeah. I mean, earth is still there. I think it's just that no one on earth is alive.

Lilly:

Okay.

Sara:

Basically and it follows Ursula la Morrow, who was an alien archeologist.

Lilly:

An archeologist of alien

Sara:

Yes, yes. She, she studied alien civilizations. then got infected with some strange alien disease. And then shortly thereafter, all of the like alien invasion stuff happened and she finds herself in a refugee camp essentially. And then is the bulk of the story is her learning that maybe this. Alien thing that infected her could actually save them from the enemy that that has been wiping out all of humanity. And so she and her former boyfriend and her boyfriend, former boyfriend's crew, go and try to save humanity.

Lilly:

This is all true. However, we've been throwing the word alien around a little willy-nilly, and I do think it's worth clarifying that in, in this sort of future post-apocalyptic, well before the apocalypse, humanity had made contact with a couple of other alien civilizations and had started exploring the stars. So there are what I'm gonna call the present day aliens, the civilizations that are. Roughly equivalent with humans as far as technology goes. There are the ancient aliens that are being studied by archeologists,

Sara:

the, precursors.

Lilly:

the precursors. Yes. And then there are the invading aliens that are killing not just humanity, also all of the like current sentient species.

Sara:

Yeah, the, so I, I think they're called cutters in the novel, but the cutters are killing all of the species that have a specific. Space travel ability. So if they can travel through these specific, like, I'm gonna call them high space highways, which is not how they're described in the, in the book, but that's basically what they are. Anything that travels on that space highway, the cutters are just kind of like decimating. Then going back to the start of the Space Highway and killing the the culture that originated there.

Lilly:

so fun concept. I think from my reading experience, this book did suffer a little bit because. It is first person narrative and we have scheduled it so close to the Great Gatsby, which is truly unfair for this book.

Sara:

I mean, that would, that would be a little bit unfair for any first person narrative to be fair.

Lilly:

Yeah, exactly. But like to go from my shining example of the ideal first person narrative to another book that's in first person narrative was I felt a little like whiplash.

Sara:

it's a little unfair in our defense. We didn't know, but

Lilly:

could you I mean, I guess we could have looked that, but that would be a weird way to schedule books.

Sara:

Yeah. But that's not how we schedule books.

Lilly:

It is. I don't know if I'm telling on myself with this though. When we first discover that the, the first person narrators ex-husband has shown up to their bar, I was like, oh, I didn't know the main character was gay.

Sara:

As in you thought that Ursula was a man

Lilly:

Yeah, we hadn't heard her name yet.

Sara:

oh, that's fair. Yeah, that's fair. I guess we hadn't heard her name yet.

Lilly:

All we knew was that her bartender, the robot Siegfried, called her gov, which is completely gender neutral, if not a little masculine.

Sara:

Yeah, that's true.

Lilly:

I was like, huh, okay. And then it was like, oh, no, wait.

Sara:

I actually had a little bit of a different experience. I was expecting. Maybe this is spoilers. I don't, I don't think it is. But I was expecting Ursula to, yes, she has this ex-boyfriend Jack. But I was expecting her to fall in love with a woman at some point in the story.

Lilly:

Interesting.

Sara:

I don't know why. I just, I was expecting her at the end of the story to, to be in a relationship with a woman. That's not what happens.

Lilly:

No, I don't think that's a spoiler.

Sara:

No,

Lilly:

IDI really liked the world that gets set up at the beginning though.'cause this book starts with Ursula in the refugee camp where she has stayed much longer than most other people because she is waiting for her boyfriend who she doesn't know is an ex. Like he saves her life. And then she's just waiting for him for, I think it's like two years

Sara:

It's two years. Yeah.

Lilly:

And she has become. The owner of the bar in this little scrappy shanty town and just all of the descriptions of that location. I felt really cool. I loved all of the different, like the, the idea of these different cultures, vastly different alien cultures coming together and just trying to survive and all of the different, like black markets that come out of that. And that was, I think one of the most compelling settings in the book.

Sara:

I, I would agree with that. I, I did really enjoy the descriptions of. This kind of existence that they were trying to eke out on this you know, moon or whatever it was this, this refugee camp where everyone was just trying to figure out how they could get to get onto one of the one of the foam ships, which would take them to a better place. I do think. That this book would make for a very good movie. it had a lot of elements that I thought were very visual and graphic and I would love to see on the screen. I don't necessarily know if it worked as well for me as a novel, but I think it would just be a really fun, like big budget movie.

Lilly:

Okay. Speaking of Ursula's Bar though, Is it ever explained where she gets alcohol to sell?

Sara:

I don't think it really is. I mean, they, they talk a little bit about how the alcohol You know, the, the alcohol that is, is made is not great, but she somehow has high quality tequila.

Lilly:

Yeah. And there's no mention of her like distilling gin, which she sells, or brewing beer. They don't have replicators because it's a big deal that later on when they're offering to barter with a, a ship replicator. So it's like, is she importing it and then selling it at a markup? Like I don't, I know that was like the economy of this refugee camp wasn't the point, except it kind of was because there was this sense of scarcity in every moment in that

Sara:

Yeah, it, it felt like things had been thought about except in this one instance, right? Like, it just, it, it stuck out as being a question.

Lilly:

Yeah, because every luxury is so hard won, I'm just like, where are you getting all of this? I, I also found her relationship with alcohol. Kind of funny. She had experienced alcoholism and is dry at the beginning of the novel. And just lambasts herself for it. She's like, I didn't have an illness. I wasn't self-medicating for anything. I was just like a bad person, which is why I drank too much. Also it was because it calms down my overactive brain and it's like, girl, that's the definition of self-medicating.

Sara:

yep. Yeah, yeah. Or Ursula, like I sympathize with Ursula and her relationship to alcohol, but she is way too hard on herself.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Like honestly, she has gone through. A, the trauma of getting infected with some kind of weird alien disease and then being poked and prodded at by the, you know, the, the military. And then right after that, humanity gets wiped out and she like manages to get on the last spaceship out of earth, which is not, it's not. Talked about a ton in the book, but was clearly a traumatic event. And then she wonders why she's an alcoholic.

Lilly:

Yeah. No. No. She doesn't wonder why. She knows why. It's because she's bad.

Sara:

I mean, to be fair, it sounds like she didn't have the best relationship with alcohol to start with. She maybe drank a little bit too much when she was an undergraduate studying archeology, but. Also she was an undergraduate. What, what? 20-year-old, you know, doesn't drink too much.

Lilly:

Yeah, and I, I think it wouldn't be so noteworthy, except it comes up a lot, like a lot, like at least three or four times she gets like multiple paragraphs talking about how. How much she was the worst.

Sara:

yeah, it, it's focused on a lot to be fair.

Lilly:

So for all that this takes place in a post space travel, post-apocalyptic future, their version of Earth was quite recognizable. We don't hear much about Ursula's present day, or I guess not present day, but Ursula's. Pre Apocalyp Apocalypse Present Day Earth. We hear about her studies and about some of her field work, but those weren't on earth. But she does talk about Earth's past quite a bit, and that felt so spot on to our present day Earth.

Sara:

I mean, they, they talk a little bit about how like bits of London were flooding and because Ursula lived in London, so. That's, that's where you know her, the, the majority of her stories about pre alien invasion Earth come from. And she talks a little bit about how London was flooding and, and how bits and pieces of London were inaccessible. And that was not anything recognizable to what we see today, but.

Lilly:

That's true. It felt like a lot of her descriptions of earth were kind of, I mean, they were clearly designed for the reader, right? It was how much Earth had changed from beforehand, like when she talks about. Artificial intelligence beings'cause there are sentient robots at this point in the future. She talks about how AI was developed from large language models back in the day. Like

Sara:

Yeah, it,

Lilly:

reference point for everything is our present day. It

Sara:

it, yes, it did feel like she was referencing our present day quite a lot. I would absolutely agree with you there.

Lilly:

That was interesting to really, like Powell clearly left not even breadcrumbs, like big shining flashing lights for the reader of of speculation, if you will. Here, there be speculation on climate change and AI and although. Obviously the sci-fi version of AI is very different.

Sara:

I would, yes, I would say that the version of AI we get in this novel in particular is very different from the version of AI that we have in the real world today.

Lilly:

Which, speaking of the, I mean, I think the AI that we get on the page the most is crisis actor, the ship that. Ursula's ex jack flies on. And then we find out the ship that Ursula's ex Jack married,

Sara:

Yeah, and that's not a spoiler because we get that on page 28. So we, we learned that very early on.

Lilly:

and I mean, obviously he, he is in a relationship with the, like human projection or there.

Sara:

She has like

Lilly:

She's not a projectionist little robot person.

Sara:

Yeah, she has basically an, an avatar I forget what the actual term is in the novel, but it's like a physical avatar that

Lilly:

That's human shaped.

Sara:

that's, that's human shaped. Yeah. And wears clothes and looks human and et cetera, et cetera.

Lilly:

But I did feel like Ursula focused so much on the. Spaceship intelligence portion of this, and it was really a misdirection because like, here's the guy who she hadn't had a long relationship with before the end of the world, but her relationship with him literally saved her from the end of the world. She spent two years waiting for him in a refugee camp, and then he shows up. She finds out that she had been dumped and never knew it. Like it doesn't matter who he's moved on with, that's going to be upsetting for her, but she really latches onto the, but it's with a spaceship thing.

Sara:

Yeah, she focuses a lot on the fact that he married his spaceship and not enough on the fact that he moved on without telling her. But like on the one hand I get it. I mean, he was in really traumatic experiences. He didn't necessarily have the opportunity to like write her a letter and tell her, sorry, I've moved on.

Lilly:

Oh no, of course. Sorry, I'm not saying that that's Jack's fault at all. I, I just feel like Ursula is extremely upset and the way the narrative dwells on things is like, that's so clearly not the real problem here, though.

Sara:

Yeah, I, I agree, but I also think that that's partly intentional. Like I, I do think that that is one of the things that the first person narrative is bringing to this. Where Ursula thinks that that's the problem. And so that's what the narrative dwells on. But she's not Right. that's not what the problem is.

Lilly:

And we, we get that later on when she digs up her or acknowledges her trauma even doesn't dig it up, but acknowledges that there's something to dig up. Yeah. No, I agree.

Sara:

Yeah. So like.

Lilly:

thought that she spends a lot of time angsting about that.

Sara:

She, she does, she does. And it does get a little bit frustrating'cause as the reader, you're like, girl, this, that's not actually what you're mad about.

Lilly:

That's so not the point.

Sara:

but the text does acknowledge it later on.

Lilly:

Yeah. Yeah, it does.

Sara:

And I, I do think that actually the, I really enjoyed the way that Ursula's relationship with crisis actor was handled because. Eventually, maybe this is spoilers too, but like they talk about stuff.

Lilly:

I don't think it's that much of apo. I mean, they're set up so antagonistically. If they hadn't eventually had a reckoning, that would've actually been really bad.

Sara:

yeah. But like they, they do actually eventually work it out,

Lilly:

Yeah. They, they talk it out. It's

Sara:

yeah. Which I was grateful for because if they hadn't, I would've been real mad because it would've been very frustrating.

Lilly:

Another thing that I noticed in this book and that raised a question for me is there are several lists of mostly literature but like various books and media references, and I'm so curious if these are Powell's favorites or if he's just building characters.

Sara:

I mean, I don't, I don't have an answer to that question. I maybe it's a little bit of both, but I, I'm not, I'm not Powell, so I can't answer that.

Lilly:

No, I know. But you never think, like, when a, an author makes a reference to another work in their book, you're like, Hmm. Yes.

Sara:

Well, sure. Like I agree that it's an interesting question. I just don't have a good answer for you is all.

Lilly:

And then of course I go, I wonder how many of those he's read, which you don't have to have read something to reference it in your work, but he pulls quotes from them, like he has to have been somewhat familiar with at least some of them.

Sara:

I, I bet he was familiar with a lot of them because I get the impression, I mean, like, I don't know him obviously, but we do follow him on social media and I, I get the impression that he's pretty well read.

Lilly:

And then there is a difference between the times when he lists out actual like book names and authors versus. Then I read Russian literature and it's like, okay. Just that whole genre. Gotcha.

Sara:

Yep. Yep. The whole genre.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm. Well, before we get into our spoilery conversation, who should read this book?

Sara:

So you should read this book if you want a very visual sci-fi action standalone story because

Lilly:

that's a good point. It is a standalone.

Sara:

it is a standalone. I'll be honest, I did get to like the three quarter mark and wonder if there is gonna be a second story. And while there is certainly room for a second story. This is a complete novel in and of itself. It didn't feel unfinished, like there are no loose ends that that need tying up. So you can just read it by itself. And I don't know if there's ever gonna be any second part or not, but

Lilly:

I love that. I feel like standalone books are underrated.

Sara:

I agree. Like

Lilly:

Finish a story.

Sara:

Yeah, like I love a standalone story. I especially love a standalone story that leaves space for another part but doesn't require it, if that makes sense.

Lilly:

Yeah, I get what you're saying.

Sara:

Yeah. And I think that's what this does. Like if Powell wrote a second part, I wouldn't be like, but the story was finished. Why did you do this? But. On the other hand, if he never writes a story, a second part, I'm not gonna be like, but the story was unfinished. Why did you do this?

Lilly:

It's a good bal. It's a hard balance to strike.

Sara:

Yeah.

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 they get free access to our biannual zine solstice.

Sara:

You can find all of that and more at patreon.com/fiction fans pod. Thank you for all of your support.

Lilly:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.

Sara:

Okay, so one issue that I did have with this book is that we never actually learn enough about the cutters who are kind of the main antagonists for me to really actually care about them.

Lilly:

Yeah, they're, I think they're supposed to be just like this looming threat, but I don't know. We also see them. So I, we get that the wrong amount of exposure to them.

Sara:

Yeah, like we, we see them so we know that they exist. We know a lot about them. And then at the end of the book, we are told that the precursors this previous alien society created them because they were. Afraid of basically like kullu stories. And thought that they needed to nip space travel in the bud basically. But we don't know anything about what they were afraid of. They were just afraid.

Lilly:

Well, and when a character. Asks, the, the intelligence that they're asking just goes, trust me. You don't wanna know. And it's like, well, that's not useful. Oh, no. They ask what, what the precursors did. That was so bad. Yeah. There were a couple of questions that were just met with, you don't wanna know. And it's like, no, I, I do though, actually.

Sara:

yeah. Like I, I did actually want to know the answer to some of these questions to understand why these things were happening.

Lilly:

Well, and early on when Ursula interacts with a cut or fights a cutter, it interacts they weren't having tea. When she encounters a cutter for the first time. That's the word I was looking for. We have this section. they kind of, project some of their emotions and thoughts a little bit and people around them can pick those up. And she

Sara:

I but the, the, so sorry, before you go on, my one question with that was, how much of that projection was Ursula understanding because she has this alien weapon in her, and how much was that? Everyone can can pick that up.

Lilly:

I thought one of the other crew members were, was able to hear them as well.

Sara:

But that was Siegfried, who is not human. He is, he's an alien conscience and he can do weird things.

Lilly:

Okay.

Sara:

We never, we never know if the other human characters have that same experience.

Lilly:

Well, that's a good point. I hadn't thought of that. That does not change,

Sara:

It no.

Lilly:

What she's about to tell us

Sara:

It, It, it, does not, it has no impact whatsoever. It's just a question that I have.

Lilly:

Yeah, so they had no interest in our territory or resources. They simply wanted to wallow in our terror and despair, and then in glory in the bloody dismemberment of our physical form. For them, the killing was the whole point of the existence, their prime directive, and most intense hunger. So it's kind of like the narrative goes out of the way to tell us these creatures have no like, not impulse shit driving force. There, there is nothing, there is nothing thoughtful or deep happening with them. Don't try to look for something and it. felt like that was pushing the cutters towards being that Eldridge horror, right, the unfeeling force that just, but even then, if my understanding is correct, part of the horror of that is that it's inconsequential to the thing that kills humanity. Not that it enjoys it, so I don't know.

Sara:

I mean, for me, that was one of the things that made me think that this would be a better movie than a novel, because you don't need to dig that deep into the motivations of the enemies in a movie. But I kind of want to, in a, in a book.

Lilly:

They just like killing. Don't ask questions. Now, the counterpoint to that is that at the end we do discover. That they were specifically made to do lots of murder, which is why they do lots of murder because they were made to, and they do what they were made to do. So in fact, they're quite obedient in that way, which I don't think is where it wanted me to go with that. But.

Sara:

I mean they're, they're behaving according to their nature. And we do learn that like we learned that they were created. Like there's no thought to them. They, they're just these unthinking creations.

Lilly:

Except they do have, like, they, they talk in language, not spoken, but they have like thoughts, coherent thoughts, so there is something going on in there.

Sara:

True.

Lilly:

It, yeah, it, I don't know. I agree. As enemies, they didn't really work for me.

Sara:

Yeah, I like, I just wanted a little bit more from them on the page. I don't know. they, they just didn't hit that level of malevolence that. I needed from them, even though they were supposed to be this huge, huge threat.

Lilly:

Yeah. Well, they cause so much destruction, but it's really far away.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I know that Jack and his crew have been fighting them, and we hear about that a little bit, but that's like third or fourth hand at that point.

Sara:

Yeah, so it kind of reminded me a little bit of an Adrian Tchaikovsky series called Shards of Earth. I think that's actually the, the name of the first book, the, the series is called The Final Architecture, and I read this. Gosh, Amazon says, I purchased it in on July 10th, 2024, which means I read it a year ago, but it feels like I read it much, much longer ago. And I couldn't articulate why they reminded me of those enemies in, in shards of Earth because it's been, I don't remember much about the series. But they, they did in, in some respects. Just remind me of the unthinking malevolence, you know, of what happens in that book. Basically, I, I kept comparing this to a Tchaikovsky novel, I think.

Lilly:

I have never read Chaikovsky, which is probably a crime actually, that I should not admit to on air, but that's where we're at.

Sara:

I mean, I've not read a lot of Tchaikovsky, so, you're, you're fine.

Lilly:

But you have read some.

Sara:

I have read some.

Lilly:

Speaking of Siegfried, though, he was a really fun character. He was probably my favorite character.

Sara:

I liked him a lot. And I was sad when he died because he does die, except that it also kind of felt like he died just for the sake of having a character die

Lilly:

To raise the stakes.

Sara:

to raise the stakes. And then he comes back and dies again. And, and then he, and then he comes back.

Lilly:

Especially because I was trying to get this in before you got to how he comes back to life, but right before he dies, we get Ursula going. He's my best and only friend, isn't he? Which like, you know, is bad news for whatever character, a main character is like, Hey, this is the most important person in my life. It, I would be shattered if something happened to them.

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

I think like maybe one page before or

Sara:

it's, it's quite rapid from that realization to his dying the first time.

Lilly:

I was like, Aw, poor buddy. And then he comes back and then he goes again. Yeah. And then you're just kind of getting yanked around.

Sara:

Yeah, like, it just, I was happy that he doesn't end up dead for good because, you know, me, I like, I really enjoy things where people don't die. I want a happy ending. So I was happy for him, but it didn't necessarily feel earned. It just felt like, yeah, being yanked around a little bit.

Lilly:

I think it his first resurrection, if you will, comes when. We find out that he had transmitted his, his sentience, his self into the like network that the cutters communicate on and was able to use that to possess one of them and come talk to Ursula and crew, which was neat. It lasts for about 30 seconds and that was so sudden and abrupt

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I, I don't think I really. Got the opportunity to like deal with it

Sara:

Yeah, it, it is relatively quick because the, the cutter takes over again pretty quick,

Lilly:

But it felt like that only happened to establish a, that Siegfried had uploaded his consciousness in this way. And I think he also gives the crew some like crucial insights into the cutters that they need.

Sara:

he, he does tell them like important information.

Lilly:

Yeah. And so that felt a little artificial.

Sara:

It just the whole, I mean, not that I was mad about him coming back necessarily, but the whole, the whole arc felt a little artificial

Lilly:

But I If, if it had just been when he came back at the end, I think that would've been more meaningful to me because we had that blip in the middle. I was like, well, we've been here before.

Sara:

I mean, I think I still would've been a little mad about it, to be honest, because it didn't feel earned.

Lilly:

But it might have, if we didn't have that weird middle part,

Sara:

I don't think it would've,

Lilly:

no, because then it would've come out of left field and it would've just, I mean,

Sara:

like then it would've just been completely random.

Lilly:

Chloe at the end was already a bit of a Deo sex mock nut, which she acknowledges Chloe being. The weapon slash artificial intelligence, whatever, that the precursors had made that the crew is trying to find. They don't know what she is, but they, they are trying to find her to try to stop the cutters. it, she becomes a, she.

Sara:

like that was really, I don't wanna say random, but that, that resolves itself really quickly. But at least that felt like the culmination of their efforts and not just, not entirely a way to bring, to not actually kill a character. Well,

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

anyone with Chloe, but you know.

Lilly:

It. The resolution did feel, I mean, you're right, it's what the whole book was moving up to. So it's not like it was a surprise that this this thing that they were trying to find, that they were hoping was a weapon to destroy the cutters was indeed the way to deal with the cutters.

Sara:

But it happened so quickly. Like I genuinely, I texted you when I was reading this novel, I was like, I'm at three quarters of the way through the book and. I don't think this is a two-parter, but I don't see how they can wrap things up in the last 50 pages. And then they do, like it is wrapped up in the last 50 pages. It does it, it is a standalone novel, but it, it feels like it happens really, really quickly.

Lilly:

Well, I think what adds to that feeling is they go back and forth on their plan like three or four times. It's not, we're learning a piece of information and then like adapting, and then we learn another piece of information and then adapt. It's, they learn about what's going on and then they go. A couple of really dramatic, one eighties, and I, I really, what I'm getting at is we spend some time of Ursula going, I'm gonna have to sacrifice myself to save the universe. And like her dealing with that and like kind of making peace with it. And then Chloe resurrect Siegfried, so I was like, oh, at least she'll have her best friend with her like that actually, you know, I, I could see that being a sort of bittersweet ending for her. And then suddenly at the 11th hour professor Vogel, her old mentor and archeologist guy was like, actually, I'll do it. And even though you were the chosen one and the only one who could do this, it's fine. I can too. And that I, I, it undercut everything that was getting set up with Ursula beforehand.

Sara:

Yeah, it again, I think it would've been a great movie. that's the kind of thing I'd love to see in a movie because you, you don't need all of the emotional depth.

Lilly:

No, you would just get the swelling music and you'd go, yay. The main character will live.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

You know who I loved? Mouse. Mouse and Siegfried to just run off together.

Sara:

Mouse was great. Mouse was Ursula's best friend at, at university. They were both starting studying archeology together. And then when Ursula or Ursula and Jack realized that they need to go and like find this archeological piece that infected Ursula prior to the start of the book, they go back to a dig to look for Dr. Vogel, who is Ursula's professor, and they find they find mouse and Mouse continues to be great. I loved Mouse.

Lilly:

he got a, a white tattoo of a mouse on his ankle, which is a choice. White ink tattoos are I don't have any, but my understanding is that's like, it must have gone to a very good artist.

Sara:

Yeah. My understanding is that they don't work very well.

Lilly:

No. So. I mean, good for him. He had a vision and he made it happen.

Sara:

To be fair. We don't know if it was a good tattoo,

Lilly:

Well, Ursula would've said she would've taken the opportunity to poke fun at her friend, I think.

Sara:

possibly, possibly.

Lilly:

But no, he was, I like the relationship. There was a, an element of me thinks they doth protest too much when they were like, but we could never be together because Mouse is super gay. And it was like, okay, you've said that a couple times, guys, you might be into each other.

Sara:

They did talk about it quite a bit, but I liked that they don't end up together.

Lilly:

No, me too. But they can stop bringing it up.

Sara:

They could stop bringing it up. I mean, I, I feel like Ursula could stop bringing up her relationship woes just a little bit. Like we, we all know she has them. Yes. Her ex is now married to his warship. She has to deal with it, but it just, yeah, she lingers on her relationships quite a bit.

Lilly:

I mean, again, with Jack, though, I get it because he was off getting married while she was basically crafting her entire post-apocalyptic existence around him. That's gonna be. Really upsetting when you find out

Sara:

Yeah, like

Lilly:

it has nothing to do with crisis actor.

Sara:

I, I get it. I don't, I don't necessarily think she behaves in a, in a bad way, and she does. Come to terms with, with crisis actor?

Lilly:

Well, she does what a lot of people do when they uh, betrayal is a dramatic word.'cause again, I don't think Jack betrayed her. They were like. Galaxies apart and had no way of communicating. It was two years. It's, I, I don't think Jack did anything wrong.

Sara:

they were, they were dating, but like, yeah, it's been two years. They haven't seen each other since. He's been through a lot of shit. She's been through a lot of shit. People change. Like it would have been nice if he sent an email, but he couldn't necessarily send an email. So

Lilly:

but it is. Not unheard of when someone experiences what they perceive as a betrayal. How's that to blame the quote unquote other woman or other man or whatever instead of their partner. So like that part made sense, even though it was, she should have been mad at Jack, not crisis actor.

Sara:

Sure. Like, I got it, but they still dealt like there was an awful lot of dwelling on it.

Lilly:

Well, it was interesting though, like she does have a reckoning with crisis actor, although I guess they call her Christ in the book. Like that's the short shorthand for

Sara:

that's her, her nickname. Yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah. And it's a big deal when Ursula starts calling her Christ and it's like, oh, they're on nickname levels now. Okay. But like, she has a, a heart to heart with crisis actor and. They sort of like become on good standing, like good terms, but she never has that With Jack, it's just sort of, oh, well now that I'm like, chill with crisis actor, I'm chill with you too. And I, I feel like that was really missing. I wanted her to have that moment with Jack because he was the one who she actually had a relationship with.

Sara:

Yeah, it felt, it did feel like. I was glad she had that conversation or, or that reckoning with crisis actor because that was needed too. But she absolutely should have had a conversation with Jack because yeah, he was the one that she was in the relationship with. He was the one who quote unquote betrayed her like

Lilly:

using as shorthand. He didn't,

Sara:

we're using it as shorthand. He didn't, he didn't actually betray her, but from her perspective he was the one who left her. Like, it's great that, that you now have a relationship with the other woman, but are you gonna make up or like talk to the person that you had the relationship with in the first place?

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

No.

Lilly:

Instead, we got a one-liner about you should be terrified now that your ex and your wife are friends.

Sara:

Ha ha ha.

Lilly:

Yeah. Sci-Fi action movie. I see that quite a bit. I think you're, you're spot on.

Sara:

it would be such a good sci-fi action movie. I would love to watch this movie. I want to watch this movie. It. I had problems with it as a novel, but I think as a movie it would, it would be so good.

Lilly:

I mean, give me a space fight at any time.

Sara:

That too.

Lilly:

if this came out as a movie, I would be there midnight showing opening night.

Sara:

yeah, yeah. Same. A hundred percent. Same.

Lilly:

Give me crisis actor narrating her like big space battle with the cutter ships. Like that would be amazing.

Sara:

Oh my God. It is just the vi the visuals of this book. So good. So, so good.

Lilly:

Like you could get such like colorful slums in the refugee camp pole house. The kind of crime, Lord, that we didn't talk about at all, I think would be a great movie. Yeah. Like movie sub villain. Yeah. I'm there.

Sara:

Yeah. Like it, it's got so many good elements. It didn't necessarily work for me as a novel. Like it is, not that I disliked it, it was fine. It just hasn't been my favorite read. But,

Lilly:

again. I read this concurrently with The Great Gatsby, which is truly unfair to any reading

Sara:

well, and and I also, I mean, to be fair, I read it right before. Dog died. So also not fair not really in the right state of mind to be reading novels, but I just, sometimes you read something and you're like, I want this in a different medium. Like, I love, I love this, but I want it to be slightly different. I wanna experience it in a different way. For me that was this book. Like I wanted to watch it as a movie and it, it's not a movie.

Lilly:

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

Sara:

Come disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky and Instagram at Fiction Fans Pod. You can also email us at fiction fans pod@gmail.com or leave a comment on YouTube.

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.