Other Jimness > Cinder Spires Spoilers
Reread
Con:
On a Reread is there anything I should look out for?
Or anything anyone wants me to look out for to answer a question they have?
Con:
Ok so I'm going to be using this thread as an update as I go along.
200 pages in and I'm appreciating the detail a lot more than I did the first time. It's a great introduction book to the spire and the systems of airships and Etherialist magic/engineering.
Thoughts on characters:
Gwen is annoying but useful.
Grimm is a great leader, not as much a dashing rouge as he'd like to believe himself to be and more than a little full of pride. I saw no logical reason as to why he needed to turn down the Spirearchs intial offer let alone be rude and disrespectful. Seems out of character with the rest of his interactions with other characters.
Benedict is a great guy only problem being he has no noticeable flaws. Perfect gentlemen, perfect physical specimen, martial artist, loyal, honourable, witty. He seems to be the only character that doesn't have a quirk beyond his stomach anyway.
Does anybody else just want to hug folly and let her know everything's going to be ok?
Bridget realistic character and I like her personality, but her only real usefulness is as a translator for Rowl. Hopefully she'll become more useful as the series progresses. Benedict deserves someone whose more than just a translator damsel in distress.
Creedy and the rest of the crew are useful and well used they serve their purpose.
Spirearch Addison is likeable, though has an unbelievable disdain for propriety which he needs to, for the audience to believe he's a good monarch particularly from an American perspective. There's just no evidence of a comparable monarch from the Renaissance to Victorian who didn't behave like sociatile niceities were fundamentally necessary in a monarch.
Looking forward to learning more about the other Spires including the Olympian Spire but also the Pikers, Atlanteans, and Nephesians. I like how the Atlanteans are dark skinned. Nephesians I'm assuming are a reference to Ephesians. Pikers based on their ritual scarring. Picts? Though they're more tattoos. Ritual scarring the only examples I can think of are tribal peoples in Africa and South America. Any ideas on who they may be based off? The only other thing is they have Beehive's and control the monopoly on honey and mead. Mead would suggest Norse roots wouldn't it?
Quantus:
Just finished my own re-read, so Ill go along with you. :)
--- Quote from: Con on October 20, 2016, 05:16:29 PM ---Ok so I'm going to be using this thread as an update as I go along.
200 pages in and I'm appreciating the detail a lot more than I did the first time. It's a great introduction book to the spire and the systems of airships and Etherialist magic/engineering.
Thoughts on characters:
Gwen is annoying but useful.
--- End quote ---
She's still playing audience surrogate to some extent, along with Bridget. She's the one that doesnt actually know about much outside of crystals and the aristocracy, and so has to beat her ignorance against other characters for them to answer the questions that the reader will have. Bridget does the same for matters of social interaction and such that Gwen should know.
--- Quote ---Grimm is a great leader, not as much a dashing rouge as he'd like to believe himself to be and more than a little full of pride. I saw no logical reason as to why he needed to turn down the Spirearchs intial offer let alone be rude and disrespectful. Seems out of character with the rest of his interactions with other characters.
--- End quote ---
I think it comes down to a few things: he hates being in the spires and dreams of a life free in the sky's, he hates the idea of belonging to or being accountable to anyone but himself, and he is "more than a littel full of pride." Also, the initial offer was equivalent to trying to hire a decorated warrior to do menial physical labor, or a Ferrari to haul turnips. That being said I think his more emotional reaction might actually be an extension of his apparent etheric connection to the ship itself; The Predator is just that: a predator, and to downgrade herself into a domesticated beast of burden, well Imagine a bunch of cats getting tied to a dog-sled...
--- Quote ---Benedict is a great guy only problem being he has no noticeable flaws. Perfect gentlemen, perfect physical specimen, martial artist, loyal, honourable, witty. He seems to be the only character that doesn't have a quirk beyond his stomach anyway.
--- End quote ---
I think he hates the fact that he's Warriorborn. It's the sort of thing that will come up again and cause bigger problems before it goes away.
--- Quote ---Does anybody else just want to hug folly and let her know everything's going to be ok?
--- End quote ---
Yup :)
--- Quote ---Bridget realistic character and I like her personality, but her only real usefulness is as a translator for Rowl. Hopefully she'll become more useful as the series progresses. Benedict deserves someone whose more than just a translator damsel in distress.
--- End quote ---
hahaha, Ill forgive you saying that because you are only a few hundred pages into your re-read. You are clearing forgetting certain events toward the end. :P
--- Quote ---Spirearch Addison is likeable, though has an unbelievable disdain for propriety which he needs to, for the audience to believe he's a good monarch particularly from an American perspective. There's just no evidence of a comparable monarch from the Renaissance to Victorian who didn't behave like socialite niceties were fundamentally necessary in a monarch.
--- End quote ---
I think it's fairly Victorian, which is literally defined as the reign of Queen Victoria. She'd face different challenges to a nation who's monarch is reaching the end of it's political supremacy than the spirearch would, so her relying more heavily on the socialite avenues of influence and power make sense for her, but the tactic of trying to convince everyone you are absent-minded and non-threatening while getting the real work done in the shadows makes just as much sense. And I have to think that a King with a style like the Spirearch would only make the history books if he royally screwed up. (no pun intended, but Ill take it ;))
Quantus:
--- Quote from: Con on October 19, 2016, 03:15:41 PM ---On a Reread is there anything I should look out for?
Or anything anyone wants me to look out for to answer a question they have?
--- End quote ---
Please keep a look-out for any mentions of Heaven, Archangels, Builders, etc.
Con:
--- Quote from: Quantus on October 20, 2016, 10:01:32 PM ---Please keep a look-out for any mentions of Heaven, Archangels, Builders, etc.
--- End quote ---
I've noted the mentions of Archangels not so much the Builders a little of the Heaven. Most people in the Spire seem to treat Archangels and Heaven the same as any other society would treat a religion. That it's the main religion of the Spire and possibly other Spires but that the Wayist is considered another religion that is also spread amongst the other spires. I suspect Jim will evantually reconcile the two by saying The Way is literally just another way of worshipping or abiding by the same philosophy as that of the Archangel religion.
The most notable mention of the Archangels is Gwendolyns mother stating that several aeronauts have reported seeing Archangels while in a sound state of mind and that she finds the reports credible even a sign and portent.
--- Quote from: Aeronauts Windlass ---"Signs and and portents appear. No fewer than for Fleet aeronauts have reported sightings of an Archangel, and swear that they were neither drunk nor sleeping"
--- End quote ---
page 10
I'll keep an eye out for more Builders referencing and will search it on my kindle after I've finished the reread.
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