Reviews and Comments

If you want to put an antenna mast on the skyscraper that has a helipad on top in this world, that is fine. But please, not both! Landing on a helipad, where you don’t have a proper view of the ground all around is hard enough. Going in through a maze of antenna masts? No. No, no, no no! Much too dangerous!

Ok, two things. They don’t seem to do proper debriefings after the encounters. There Claire could have mentioned the ceiling she hit, what is later called the wall (the Wall?).

Also, Nova has now thrown her cymbals twice. I don’t think she mentioned the second time to the armorer. This sounds like a dramatic complication in the next fight, were they probably will shatter.

But that is what the armorer is for. Long-term durability isn’t really a thing with modern weaponry. If you can win a fight in a way that weakens your weapon you do it. But then you mention it in the debriefing, so that something can be done about it.

(I just recently heard about US Navy pilots more or less deliberately ruining the engines on their planes: by saving fuel they put a lot of wear on the engines. But the choice was saving the pilot and the airframe, or losing it – together with the pilot and a pristine engine.)

I ges i am getting more and more curmudgeony as i grow older.

There are some common story elements that i think are just impossible (some obviously so, others not so much) * faster than light travel * time travel * magic and divine intervention * »body swapping«

That does not mean that people shouldn’t use them in fiction. But for me there ar two conditions: The trope is used just for convenience. The classic is Star Trek: Yu want a clean slate for each episode, so the cast is at a new planet each week. Somehow. Dto. the transporter. Yu just save episode time and cost of a shuttle prop. Or if it is important for the plot it still must not be the plot. Take body swapping stories. There the plot generally not »what if we could separate ›consciousness‹ and memory from a brain and put it in another brain«. The plot is generally »what if people were treated the way they treat other people«.

So. Finally, Qoheleth. Here the main plot seems to be »what if, if you had a hiper-immersive computer interface, that would mean that your ›consciousness‹ and your memories could somehow not just be copied, but would somehow be moved out of your body«. In my eyes it is not a priori completely impossible to make some sort of copy of a »person«, but i don’t see how »consciousness« can be anything other than some brain function. I don’t see how that brain function could be moved out of a brain and then be a function of something that is not a brain. Especially not by accident.

As such, i reject the basic premise of this book. No star rating. The situation is too odd for that.

OK, i do what i do and note two things that don’t really work: In a modern setting, it doesn’t really work to have people stumble around in the dark. Why wasn’t anybody getting their phones out and switch on the lamp? And that one guy, there is no talk about tying him up. Then he makes noises. Doesn’t the author know that there always is a release handle, just for this case? OK, using it at the wrong time is dangerous. Still.

Not »My personal trainer cracked my egg and she is not a spy after my father’s secrets« vs. not »My personal trainer cracked my egg and she is not out for well deserved revenge against my father«. Eh, close enough.

Hmm. I’m something like half way thru this, and i just noticed that it is called »My Personal Trainer Cracked My Egg« and not »My personal trainer cracked my egg and she is not a spy after my father’s secrets. She really isn’t. Author’s honor!«. Just saying.

So. The attack on the »peacekeeping¹« force: It is called »unprovoked« but the sequence of events is:

• The Earth force shows up and takes up an attack formation
• They start some probing of the other side’s ships’ systems that can be seen as aggressive
• The other side fires one shot, damaging one Earth ship
• All Earth ships start firing back with multiple weapons
• The other side start firing with all their weapons

That isn’t quite as one-sided as the characters (and the author?) want as to believe it is.

OK. The aliens shooting up the survivors is quit aggressive. But they haven’t signed the Geneva Convention.

1) The peace they keep is very much a pax romana: keeping the subjugated colonial folks down in their place with the threat of force.

So, yeah, the whole thing is a bit silly. And simple. What we get is »gender euphoria (after the Clarke-magic physical transition) plus silly plot X« where X is stories like To Love Ru (i think) or MiB; some generic anime style robot fighting. Stuff like that. In the end we get Jeffries tubes, so a bit Star-Trek-ish.