A day in the life...

Author Commentary

Chapter 13

A lot of build-up in this chapter and a couple of minor interesting developments. But, mostly, this chapter is about world-building. I am trying to give the audience a fuller vision of how Cytherea functions as a society. Or, at least, how the Rainha wants people to believe it functions.

Althea is my favorite in this chapter. Again, in the last book, she was the sensible one. She served as a kind of tether for Viekko, who was very busy leaping over Titan like a superhero and Isra who seemed ready to let the whole operation, not to mention Titan, burn to the ground. Cronus was off in his little world causing problems. So Althea was a weird intermediary for the group.

So it's fun to watch her go off the rails a little bit and really use her skills of infiltration and social engineering. And it's fun to watch the inner rebel she has worked hard to suppress come out and get into trouble.

Meanwhile, Viekko is falling face-first into the Cytherean propaganda although that felt completely natural for me. Viekko's headstrong with a stupid sense of justice but it tends to get short-circuited when it comes to the horrible things one must do to survive. Though never stated directly (not yet anyway) we get the sense that life on Mars was hard for young Viekko and he's not proud of everything he had to do to ensure his survival along with that of his colony. So he is more willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

But, overall, not much to say. This chapter is like mid-game chess where the players are positioning their pieces getting ready for a strategic strike.
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At least I assume. I never, ever got the hang of chess. But it sounds good so I'm keeping it.

Uh...guys?