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it can feel slightly disjointed and scattered for a good portion, but it gradually comes together into something depressing and profound by the end. i know the reread will be a lot more gratifying.

lofty aspirations, occasionally justified in its profundity. the execution is all over the place, and never fully coheres by its end. worth a read if you don't mind the questionable plotting.

the epistolary format sketches out a negative space around the protagonist. on the first read, it can feel a bit clunky and haphazard, but as the novel goes on, the picture becomes sharper, and the narrative begins gesturing at different happenings in the world of the PSK and his correspondents. by its end, it becomes a profound meditation on how we construct our identities both internally and externally, and what the consequences of those choices can be.

this one will definitely be a much richer experience on the reread. gonna let it simmer in my head a bit, then get back to it in a few months.

a mostly satisfying end to this part of the story. the genre switch-ups never gave either storyline enough time to breathe, leaving things feeling a little undercooked overall. The punchy, choppy writing style also didn't help matters, lending a unnecessary propulsion to scenes that would have played better with longer sentences and paragraphs.
it was still a pretty good book, with a lot of meaty thematic material and enough gore to keep me reading.

better than it has any right to be

set apart from its context, it's a grand, minor masterpiece of floaty sci-fi that ewing and gillen excel at. as a part of the broader krakoa story, it's a bit pointless. but idk. it's a variation on the "impossibility of power" theme that has unfolded across the Krakoa era. it's good, i liked it.

wildly good, a pleasant surprise. Gillen makes the stakes feel real.