Cypher: Lord of the Fallen

[DarKnight]

John French has been on a roll IMO, LOVED Sigismund looking forward to this release 15 July https://www.blacklibrary.com/prod-home/new/ebook-cypher-lord-of-the-fallen-eng-2023.html

[Nagashsnee]

  On 7/11/2023 at 10:36 PM, DarKnight said:

John French has been on a roll IMO, LOVED Sigismund looking forward to this release 15 July https://www.blacklibrary.com/prod-home/new/ebook-cypher-lord-of-the-fallen-eng-2023.html

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Am i missing something or wasnt this released a while ago? Or was that just  a LE?

 

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Isnt this the book where the ever loyal Dark Angels murder their way across the Emperors Palace?

 

[theSpirea]

That was just LE, the regular edition (hardback/ebook, and hopefully audio) was on pre-order last Saturday so will be out on 15th

[DarKnight]

  On 7/12/2023 at 5:59 AM, Nagashsnee said:

Am i missing something or wasnt this released a while ago? Or was that just  a LE?

 

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Isnt this the book where the ever loyal Dark Angels murder their way across the Emperors Palace?

 

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I wasn’t aware the LE had been released but not surprising regarding BL. The sample does make it look like the spoiler you posted does happen, I do enjoy French’s work so I’ll read regardless, but I’m so tired of the Fallen/DA angle, hopefully this is a last gasp lol

[Nagashsnee]

  On 7/12/2023 at 9:16 PM, DarKnight said:

I wasn’t aware the LE had been released but not surprising regarding BL. The sample does make it look like the spoiler you posted does happen, I do enjoy French’s work so I’ll read regardless, but I’m so tired of the Fallen/DA angle, hopefully this is a last gasp lol

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Oh it 100% happens i read the book, but as i borrowed it off a mate i had not realized it was the LE, the book is fun, nothing fantastic but fun! The LE now that i know it was a LE was underwhelming tho. 

[Osteoclast]

This was a great read. Certain elements tie in well both with his Horusian War series and the Dark Imperium novels. French continues to be one of the best at showing the underlying horror and insanity that is the Imperium as well as the straight up best on the metaphysics of 40K imho. 
 

Also snarky Ancia is awesome. 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Osteoclast

[DarkChaplain]

I'm a few chapters in and this goes extremely hard on worldbuilding. Stuff like short excursions to Mechanicum factory workers' lives, or religious art being crafted and sold on Gathalamor, or spending paragraphs on describing just how f'd up Terra is on a societal level.

 

It's crazy engaging in that way. The plot has barely kicked off, but I'd argue it's worth reading for how it paints the setting at the moment of Guilliman's return.

 

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I'm curious if the rest of the novel with give some hints about Cypher, relating to the Siege of Terra.

He seems all too familiar with certain aspects and secrets of the Throneworld, which makes me think he's been there during the Siege, with Corswain's contingent, probably. But those were at the Astronomican, not in the inner palace, so far. We'll see.

Edited July 16, 2023 by DarkChaplain

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

I read through this a while back. I particularly liked the take on the Assassinorum, different from either the field agents I've read about in the past or Fadix in the Wraight novels.

 

Would have been interesting to hear it as the audio drama it was originally intended to be, but it worked fine as a novel.

[theSpirea]

I'm halfway in and loving it. You can tell it was supposed to be an audio drama and it would be fantastic. Multiple voice actors and Cyper jumping in the middle of the scene with his take/insight.

So far with 45K words (previous average was 59K) the shortest installment in the so-called 40K series 

[DarkChaplain]

I'm over halfway through and I'm starting to feel a bit conflicted.

 

What is there, is great. It's got fantastic insights and heaps of lore that you can only dream of from most 40k books. It's giving so many worldbuilding pieces and anecdotes that it draws you in.

 

On the other hand, the plot so far has been paper thin. The novel spends pages upon pages on descriptions and insights on institutions, paradoxes of the setting and mysteries, or snippets that Cypher can't possibly know without psyker/warp shenanigans, but the things actually happening can be easily summed up. Even if you count introspection on the Fallen or specific key characters as part of the developing plot, it's still getting overshadowed by the lore chunks.

 

I love the lore chunks. They're interesting to read, though at times I feel like French is being too focused on throwing conundrums and hypotheses the reader's way. Asking questions, giving reasons and explanations, then casting them right back into doubt. It's kind of got a "girls use the bathroom too!.....or do they?!" vibe at times. Don't spend so much time telling us deep lore just to throw it right up in the air again, even though it seems to be the truth.

 

It's the whole "I am Alpharius. This has been a lie" debacle all over again - quite literally.

 

It lives and dies on Cypher's first person narrative, but to be honest, so far, I feel like Cypher has been a bit of a rare show on the page, and he's telling us everything about everyone down to the minutest detail.... just not about himself. It takes like eight or nine chapters even just for him to acknowledge the sword as his macguffin, spin a bit of a tale, presents hypotheticals, and then asks the reader what he/she thinks is actually true about it, and asks if it even matters. It's playing on the fan-theories in places like these, I suppose.

 

But it's great fun regardless, just not at all for the reasons I expected.

 

And some totally off-the-rocker theorycrafting around Cypher:

 

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One thing I've noticed in a few places is nods to quantum mechanics. Cypher is said, for example, to not be closing off possibilities through his actions and choices. He comes to a crossroads in his future, and whether he goes left or right, both paths and results seem to remain open to him anyway. It's like he's working towards every possibility at the same time, despite them being mutually exclusive. Hell, Alpharius & Omegon should've asked the bloke for advice during their cabal-fueled "let's try everything" course of the Heresy pre-Praetorian of Dorn.

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‘What are these?’ he asks. ‘These images are not of events that took place here. Are they his thoughts?’
‘No. These are unborn destinies. I have never seen anything exactly like this. It is as though his future is both clear and ever-changing. Some of these things wait in his future, but which of them is likely to occur changes with every instant that passes.’
‘Are not all futures like that? One choice opens the door to one path and closes another? That was an insight of the quantum-scholars far back in the history of the species.’
‘Yes, but this is not a branching of consequences. Look again…’
And Hekkarron looks, and his mind and eyes, so keen and sharp, see then what a glance missed.
‘These are complete and different futures, as though what is to happen remains possible, as though the branches of the future do not collapse but remain. He is not following a path – he is following several. He is carrying the future with him.’
‘For now,’ Ancia says. ‘At some point they must collapse and leave one truth.’ She shudders then, and the ghost images flicker and vanish too.

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But this makes me wonder if Cypher wasn't just displaced in time and space during the Fall of Caliban, but has become a sort of Schrödinger's Cat, who relies on having an observer in a weird sense. It's totally crazy throw-theory-at-wall stuff, but what if he doesn't disappear all the time because he "escapes" from his captors, be they inquisitors, assassins or the Unforgiven, but because he went unobserved?

Kind of putting the cart before the horse here, obviously, but this is a character whose route is basically impossible to chart, who knows way too much about all manner of things that supposedly nobody knows anymore, stuff that would be difficult even for a high-grade psyker to find out (which he might still actually be, if it was Zahariel after all, which I doubt) and he seems to either show up out of nowhere to cause some sort of drama or other with sightings being reported, or surrounds himself with a retinue, or just appears in front of the Dark Angels when they were dealing with Astelan.

He's the character in 40k to always mysteriously appear out of nowhere, who can't be traced once he goes off on his lonesome, and hops through the galaxy without so much as a ship of his own.

Though with the Lion returned and his ability of "Forestwalking", it may be plausible for Cypher to share that ability. Or the Forestwalk realm itself is a sort of quantum plane, separate from but connected to the Warp. It's clearly not simply a warp bubble or webway or the likes, but it would explain a lot about Cypher if he was able to use that thing as well.

And then you have the constant questions and theories Cypher brings up, where it seems like the result is dependent on the observer - the reader - or rather, his interpretation. It's like Cypher puts a box in front of us and asks if the cat inside is alive or dead at the moment. John French is hammering home time and again that he wants the reader to consider possibilities, from significant ones to the mundane, to question, and makes the reader the deciding factor, in a sense.

At the very least this all makes me think that French was inspired by this stuff, whether it's actually bearing relevance to Cypher's lore or not.
 

 

I'm interested in seeing if the second half of the novel will continue giving me those impressions or dash them... or just starve them because it's all a giant coincidence that it popped up in my mind.

Edited July 16, 2023 by DarkChaplain

[Fedor]

There's some good Terran worldbuilding and cool scenes, but as a long awaited Cypher book i thought this was a massive disappointment. It did nothing interesting with the character, and actively seemed to avoid engaging with him. You could replace him with an Alpha Legion operative, or some other random sneaky Fallen, without needing to change much at all.

 

French's worst book imo, though i haven't read his last Ahriman entry.

[lansalt]

  On 7/19/2023 at 1:38 PM, Fedor said:

You could replace him with an Alpha Legion operative

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If you have in mind the AL stories (both in 30k and 40k), that's exactly what it looks like. The ending scene of this novel, and the fact that Cypher doesn't appear at all in the new Lion book also speaks volumes about his true identity, IMO.

[Urauloth]

Only partway through this as well, but I like DarkChaplain's theory. 

It fits stylistically with

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the creature the Custodian has to recapture, which has no form until it is observed. That seems like French exploring a similar theme, and encouraging the reader to think about the possibility, if nothing else.

Also, what is that thing? Could it be a shard of Qah? It isn't an Umbra, but there might be others.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Urauloth

[EverythingIsGreat]

Good day,

 

Thanks for the comments. The involvement of quantum theory was also implied in French's Ahriman: Eternal. And quantum-field-like time and perception-related shenanigans imo are also present in Peter Fehervari's Dark Coil. One can stretch the concept to include other stories, recent and not so recent (the Webway could seem like an approximate application of string theory in gross form). I suppose that this is to be expected in SF/Fantasy stories, seeing that quantum theory is the bleeding edge of current science along with other concepts like the universe-as-a-hologram, fractal multiverses etc etc. The fancy terminology reveals more about science's ignorance about the fundamental nature of things, rather than anything concrete about them. And that would fit the stories covered by this forum just right. Not to mention their tie-ins. Obviously, there can be no retcons when reality is in flux. So do stop whining... the lore cannot be inconsistent when consistency as a concept is questioned 

[Roomsky]

Have to agree that this is one of French's weakest offerings, not least because it was clearly meant to be an audio drama. The style of narration would have been helped a lot by a charismatic voice actor, but as it is I got a lot of "I wish I was re-reading Head of the Hydra instead" feels. Cypher is too much of a, well, cipher for me to really get invested in much of anything that's going on - I can put up with an opaque main character in something like The Horusian Wars because trying to unpack a mystery/conspiracy is compelling in its own right. In this case the opaque main character IS the mystery and we know going in we're not going to learn anything by the end. 

 

And no, it didn't need to reveal things about Cypher. But I do ask at this point - WHY is everything about him treated as so mind-shatteringly mysterious that even we, the readers don't get to know it? We don't get to know who Cypher is or what his motives are - fine, I can live with that - but like, what's the deal with making him Schrodinger's astartes? We as readers know about the Fallen and every minute detail about the Dark Angels during the Heresy. OoOoOoh, it's so mysterious you don't even know what the mystery's about! How cintillating.

 

Didn't hate it though. This may be the best description of Terra I've ever read; I think French's greatest strength is atmosphere and creating characters and settings which effectively demonstrate how vast and ancient the Imperium is. This is the buzzing, psychotic heart of a psychotic empire, and French doesn't let you forget it. The non-Cypher cast is good too, but don't get enough time or development to carry the book while keeping its namesake distant like, say, Kautenya in The Great Angel. 

 

Overall it's... fine. Like, I didn't dislike reading it. But I was experiencing some annoyance with the title character, to the point where I wish he wasn't the narrator at all and the same plot could have happened with Mordachi (which my brain refuses to stop pronouncing Mor-DA-chi instead of as Mor-de-kai) as the POV. 

 

Ehhhhhh 5.5/10. 

[lansalt]

  On 7/22/2023 at 2:00 PM, Roomsky said:

"I wish I was re-reading Head of the Hydra instead" feels

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I think everyone should do it after reading this, because the similarities of the first person narration in both books are very noticeable, despite being written by different authors, and look deliberate to me. I know that may fans dislike the C=A/O theory, but I can't see how it can be any other way after this story, with Cypher showing abilities and knowledge that previously has only been seen in a certain... class of characters. The end scene is the final proof, IMO.

Edited July 22, 2023 by lansalt

[Kelborn]

Adding the fact that A/O is able to make himself unnoticeable, which could be a hint on Cyphers ability to disappear and reappear all of the sudden. 

 

Wouldn't be against it but I don't see the reason behind it, yet.

[DarkChaplain]

Alright, I finished it as well and had some time to think it over.

 

I'll stand by my opinion that, in terms of worldbuilding, the novel is brilliant. It's cutting deep, and makes some very engaging arguments about the Imperium's depravity that may make the reader agree that rebellion against that system, refusal to be part of it, is a logical course of action.

 

But it's so hands-off on Cypher and the other Fallen, so underdeveloped on the unfolding plot, that I'm left disappointed regardless.

 

The little "twist" at the end is neat enough, and explains how Cypher can know certain things he narrates, but it also seems to me like a dig at the reader in a sense.

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Cypher has been talking to Mordechi the entire time, not to "us", the reader. He drew him into his mind with promises of truths and confession and is playing back events, posing questions at a self-righteous Dark Angel, poking fun at him about the secrets etc. He's thumbing his nose at the Dark Angel, and in turn at us, the reader, in a sense of "did you really think I'd let you learn anything of value?" - and that's just lazy, in a way, even if the execution was fairly neat.

 

The book could have gone into detail about the other Fallen at least, telling us how they came to be by Cypher's side, or just glimpses of the final moments of Caliban and where they were, if we're not even going to talk about Cypher himself.

But nothing. Not even Korlael got much to go on beyond his loyalty and honour. And it's not like more than three of the Fallen were even significant enough to be named and have speaking roles (I think one fourth did, as an early sacrifice in the plot, but that's it?)

 

The most I can say about Cypher is that we learn about his character through his thought patterns and outlooks on matters - but even that is up in the air as potential lies. I think his view of Chaos is about what I expected it to be, but that just makes the chapter iconography of the book stand out as silly.

 

But funnily enough, I found some more lines that might play into my earlier silly theory. For one, the Chaos Pantheon are described as sort of waveforms at some point. Not sentient in themselves, but fueled by sentience, and rippling out into reality.

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They are eternal, waveforms created by life, which never break or fade but run on without beginning or end.

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Interestingly, there were two things about Cypher himself that might be of value:

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In a Path of Martyrs section, Cypher's narration remarks this:

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The deaths and martyrdom on this spot came before that, long before, in a war that almost all who fought in it have forgotten. All except me.

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Sounds to me like a Siege of Terra reference, which might mean that Cypher actually was with the Dark Angels under Corswain. Might also relate to the Alpha Legion, though, who we've seen deep inside the palace. I don't like the theory that Cypher is not a Dark Angel at all, but he's so nondescript, it's difficult to make a good argument against it without going into symbolic reasons. However, the way he deals with and desires brotherhood from the Fallen tells me that he's actually a son of the Lion.

 

Then there's this line spoken by a daemon possessing Bakhariel:

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‘Cypher… the warrior with no name… the soul divided… What pleasure shall be yours, what slaughter? Your quest is over, fool knight. The only vengeance is ours, and the only redemption lies in our embrace.’

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Soul divided? Between loyalty and treachery, order and chaos, or actually a soul torn into two, or a body holding an amalgamation of two separate souls? Silly theory time again: Is Cypher one person in the first place, or two in the same shrouded body? Is it Zahariel the rogue psyker, or is it maybe even Corswain himself, who we know from Gav's Luther novel has simply vanished without a trace when he went to face Cypher on Caliban? What if Cypher's Schrödinger's Cat vibes of many possible futures is down to him not being a single, united soul but actually two stuck together, eternally pulling in different directions, thus never turning his back on any one path?

 

I'll also say that I never felt okay with Cypher being Zahariel as we know him. I don't think Cypher ever really showed psychic tendencies. But here, with some aspects, like the Mordechi-twist, and maybe even the fact that Ancia has her memory wiped, or him being able to sneak up on an assassin? The potential foresight he shows in many places? I could well believe him to be a psyker at this point, just not in the UNLIMITED POWAH-sense that Zahariel sometimes espoused.

 

 

 

 

It's silly theory crafting, of course. It'd be badonkers to believe in it on what thin grounds I'm posing it. But this is the sort of thing that I believe John French was gunning for with a lot of little things here. For people to cling onto the smallest details and turns of phrase to come up with more ideas and muddying the waters around Cypher. He knows fully well how insane the community can be when it comes to these core mysteries of the setting, and he's actively toying with it.

 

But that also means that he would not reveal jack all definitive answers about said mystery. And he knows it.

 

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Which is more important, the truth or what people believe? Most would say the truth, but that is too easy. No one actually wants the truth. Not in this universe. Hearing the truth is like looking on the face of a god – you have a moment of pure revelation, and then you are ash carried away to oblivion, knowing nothing, seeing nothing. When people say they want the truth, they mean that they want something they can understand, something that fits, that they can carry around in their thoughts like a relic, to touch and take away the fear of what they are living.

Am I a traitor? Am I one soul, or am I many? Have I had many names or only the one? Do I wish redemption or vengeance? It’s comforting to be able to pick one, and then see everything fall into line behind it – villain-hero, right-wrong, on and on. That’s what people want when they ask for the truth. They want the lie that makes the world simple.

But you are not like that, are you? You know that it is better not to ask for the truth. That what you should ask for are secrets.

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I feel like this is the book's entire premise, summarized. The entire raison d'Être for French writing the book the way he did. He's fueling fan theories while giving reliable credence to none of them. To tell us one thing while repeatedly telling us that it can fall one way or the other, that you can't rely on any of the evidence before your eyes, and that it's all one major unreliable narrator narrative that you cannot take for granted no matter how hard you try.

 

And while on one hand, pulling a book like that off is a great achievement.... it is extremely dissatisfying for a multitude of reasons, because there's a massive discrepancy between what the author intends with and what the reader expects of the work. It's almost like the two are in opposition with regards to what they want this novel to be, what role to fulfill, even when the reader is fully on board with not learning all the facts and is ready to be deceived to a degree.

 

[Fedor]

  On 7/22/2023 at 2:38 PM, lansalt said:

I think everyone should do it after reading this, because the similarities of the first person narration in both books are very noticeable, despite being written by different authors, and look deliberate to me. I know that may fans dislike the C=A/O theory, but I can't see how it can be any other way after this story, with Cypher showing abilities and knowledge that previously has only been seen in a certain... class of characters. The end scene is the final proof, IMO.

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I wouldn't mind that, though that could be because of my own limitations these days at coming up with a way for Cypher to be interesting as a purely Dark Angels character. The evolution of the siege series, and the way they are resolving the fallen issue without him (with Lion's return),  don't seem to offer up much space for anything too intriguing.

 

A/O could be tied in through the watchers, which would also give us more reason to see some development of them as a wider force than solely tied to Caliban.

 

 

[EverythingIsGreat]

  On 7/22/2023 at 2:00 PM, Roomsky said:

And no, it didn't need to reveal things about Cypher. But I do ask at this point - WHY is everything about him treated as so mind-shatteringly mysterious that even we, the readers don't get to know it? We don't get to know who Cypher is or what his motives are - fine, I can live with that - but like, what's the deal with making him Schrodinger's astartes? We as readers know about the Fallen and every minute detail about the Dark Angels during the Heresy. OoOoOoh, it's so mysterious you don't even know what the mystery's about! How cintillating.

 

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I have not read this book but I recognize the situation. It has been appearing in the lore for a while, this sort of meta-mystery about the lore itself. It is interesting, for a while (only). It may not be accidental. I'm not suggesting there is a nefarious plan here. It may be that the IP is in bigger flux than we know, and may involve possible repositioning or "modernizing" so it is wise that options are kept open. I suppose it would apply to supporting literature. Again, it adds a somewhat exciting element, temporarily.

 

This imo extends the quote from Roomsky

 

  On 7/22/2023 at 8:32 PM, DarkChaplain said:

 

I feel like this is the book's entire premise, summarized. The entire raison d'Être for French writing the book the way he did. He's fueling fan theories while giving reliable credence to none of them. To tell us one thing while repeatedly telling us that it can fall one way or the other, that you can't rely on any of the evidence before your eyes, and that it's all one major unreliable narrator narrative that you cannot take for granted no matter how hard you try.

 

And while on one hand, pulling a book like that off is a great achievement.... it is extremely dissatisfying for a multitude of reasons, because there's a massive discrepancy between what the author intends with and what the reader expects of the work. It's almost like the two are in opposition with regards to what they want this novel to be, what role to fulfill, even when the reader is fully on board with not learning all the facts and is ready to be deceived to a degree.

 

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Right. In my opinion, conceit as a device is meaningful and memorable only when it is resolved (hopefully in a masterful manner). The resolution could be in the final chapter, or in the next sentence. And if the latter is the case, it need take nothing away from a well-crafted storyline.

 

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“I was there,’ he would say afterwards, until afterwards became a time quite devoid of laughter. ‘I was there, the day Horus slew the Emperor.’

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[Helias_Tancred]

I read it. Cypher is one of my favorite characters in 40k, and the Dark Angels are one of my favorite marine chapters (and one of two collections/armies I own) ... however at the end of it I was left asking "what was the point of this story?"

[Nagashsnee]

  On 7/23/2023 at 5:14 AM, Eilio Tiberius said:

I read it. Cypher is one of my favorite characters in 40k, and the Dark Angels are one of my favorite marine chapters (and one of two collections/armies I own) ... however at the end of it I was left asking "what was the point of this story?"

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It brought those of us who love watching Dark Angel players try to justify the things the Dark Angels do in lore in their hunt for the fallen great great joy :) .

[Urauloth]

  On 7/23/2023 at 5:14 AM, Eilio Tiberius said:

I read it. Cypher is one of my favorite characters in 40k, and the Dark Angels are one of my favorite marine chapters (and one of two collections/armies I own) ... however at the end of it I was left asking "what was the point of this story?"

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Not a lot, but it was a very well written not a lot.

John French could write a story about an administratum office worker collecting his mail and it would be full of top-notch worldbuilding that would make it worth reading.

[Helias_Tancred]

I agree about his quality of writing. Definitely. 

[Sothalor]

I liked this one; I did not love it.

 

Cypher: Lord of the Fallen excels at worldbuilding and many technical elements. Its use of the unreliable narrator and Cypher’s second-person narration interspersions as a framing device are well done, and help stir what would otherwise be an unremarkable plot along. The prose and wordsmithing are on point, as much of John French’s works tend to be.

 

I had fun reading it, but it left me unfulfilled ex post facto.

 

However, this really isn’t a character exanimation of Cypher as a character, and the plot itself is shockingly thin once you get past its obfuscatory narrative style. Cypher himself is barely present for much of the story – despite the fact that his is the narrating voice here. Even there, the narration leans almost entirely on his persona as a mystery, a sort of trickster meta-figure for the setting. And while that may be enjoyable on its own, as well as fairly adeptly employed here in a self-contained context, it’s kind of frustrating.

 

I get that Cypher’s whole thing is the mystery and uncertainty surrounding him and his goals and motivations. So, this isn’t going to definitively state things are one way or another, fair enough. But for a book titled Cypher: Lord of the Fallen, this doesn’t satisfactorily explore any of those.

 

We get just about nothing of Cypher as a person. What drives him? What does he want? Why? What are his hopes, or fears, or dreams? Who, or what, does he see himself as? How has his quest changed him over time, and what has it cost him? I think the book could have delved into some of these things without necessarily having to lock in hard answers pertaining to the 40k “meta-plot” (and as a personal aside I loathe the fact that it seems like, increasingly, 40k novels and fan perception lean on some kind of engagement with the idea of an ongoing storyline of key stars and events).

 

Then there’s the whole “Lord of the Fallen” angle. I enjoyed the character work we did get with the Fallen accompanying Cypher on this particular adventure. Azkhar, Bakhariel, and Korlael work well as representations of how fractured and diverse the Fallen are, and how each may be wildly different in terms of goal, outlook, and personal values. Frankly, I wish the novel had done as much for Cypher himself.

 

And there’s a real missed opportunity here to show why Cypher is Lord of the Fallen. What is it about him that commands such authority, respect, and/or obedience from the Fallen? Why do they follow him? What is it about this man that can bring together renegades ranging from “My loyalty to the Emperor has never waned” to “Come daemons channel your sorcery through my body” and make them all work together? If we’re not going to get anything concrete about Cypher, how about exploring who he is to these ragged castaways?

 

In summary, Cypher reminds me of some Christopher Nolan movies: intricately constructed with excellent technical craftsmanship, but it sort of feels like it’s missing some human element at the heart of it. That said, what’s good here is indeed very good, and I appreciate it for those qualities even as it frustrated me after finishing and thinking about it.

 

 

P.S. As another personal aside, I feel like we’ve been on a streak of present-tense narrative voice with BL books recently, and I’m over it. Give me some past-tense third-person or first-person. Hell, go full Frank Herbert and give me some past-tense third-person omniscient.

P.P.S. Never go full Frank Herbert.