Sea of Rust; Chapter 1 Angel of Mercy: Discussion

submitted by [deleted] from self.whatever

What did you think of chapter one, sea of rust?

Maybe some questions to consider, but really say whatever you want:

What happened?

Who was introduced?

What’s going on in the book?

What did you think?

What do you think the rest of the book has in store for us?

Did you pick up on any literary devices?

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newinsightfulfun

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don’t know what my place is in the discussion, as the person trying to build book club. Nevertheless:

We meet Britt. We learn what she is, and what she does. We learn about her compassion, and also her ruthlessness. We learn a lot of about post apocalypse the world we find ourselves in. But we didn't learn too much.

This is a fun book, I look forward to learning more about this word we find ourselves in. I enjoy the world building, learning about where we are, and getting to know the main character.

I look forward to seeing what other people thought.

I think I’ll wrap several chapters together in the next post, because they are short.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

That mad old dude comes up a few times in the book. The last human. And he's killed almost immediately. A guy who had been living for decades underground, eating rats. And that day he finally decides to come to surface, I'm sure he knew what would happen.

I love the wasteland intro, reminds of The Dark Tower, "The man in black walked across the desert and the gunslinger followed." And you don't know what the intent is as Brit talks to the robot Jimmy. They're chatting like old buds about the good times Killing All Humans, and ya know, I kind of thought she might really help old Jimmy.

They really go over a lot that the rest of the book expounds on, the war with the humans, the scarcity of parts, the One World Intelligences....

Some bots don’t like bartering for pieces of their old friends. Makes them feel like they could have taken the bot apart themselves. Could have, but didn’t.

Ice Cold! Brittle could have saved Jimmy probably, if she cared at all to do that. I thought she might. I guess this sets Brit up as an anti-hero.

The flash gets mentioned a lot. If anyone isn't familiar:

The green flash is a phenomenon that occurs at sunset and sunrise when conditions are favorable, and results when two optical phenomena combine: a mirage and the dispersion of sunlight. As the sun dips below the horizon the light is being dispersed through the earth's atmosphere like a prism. As the light passes through the familiar Roy G. Biv of the spectrum, sometimes a flash of green can be seen for a few seconds. Source

All in all I thought it was a great start to the book.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yea. I found it interesting. I also thought she may save him. But at the same time, the setting made me more realistic about my expectations.

The last man standing is a great setup for the rest of the book. The irony.

I don’t get the books reference to magic, and to the green glint.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Green itself is sometimes a reference to man-made or made-up stuff. Illusions basically. Just rewatch "The Matrix", if you don't believe me.

Every scene that plays in the Matrix itself has a green filter applied.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don’t get the books reference to magic, and to the green glint.

She's a robot, not really a she at all, an it, and she's looking for that "magic" humans used to see in nature. She's trying to see it, but can only see the world logically.

The robots miss humans, they have no purpose without them.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Pretty interesting to start with.

All the humans are dead! damn!

So I think the author is trying to draw some parallels between us and the robots. The way Brittle describes the broken and failing robots that have been cast aside act just like humans in our society do - crippled, insane, desperate.

The healthy cast them out because it frightens them of their own mortality and inevitable decline.

I think the author is very much trying to say that we ourselves are biological robots with programming too, and letting us see that side of ourselves through this character Brittle.

Curious as to what this OWI stuff they are talking about is, but I see thats the subject of the next chapter, and I imagine it will be some manner of collective AI consciousness.

Seems like a good choice so far