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The Passage sequence: The City of Mirrors [spoilers]


Ser Scot A Ellison

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I got my copy last week.  It's pretty good so far:

It's pretty clear that Fanning/Zero is somehow quite differenf.  His full backstory was interesting in a narcissitic self-involved sort of way.  I like how much time is passing and the explanation for why Kerr ille has let its guard down.  I'm really curious to see what happens to Alicia.  She's one of my favorite characters

I did check for old threads.  They all seemed to be archived.

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I thought the book started strong and as I said elsewhere, I found Zero's story oddly affecting. Things started to unravel just after the midpoint though, and the final confrontation and conclusion were both let downs for me. Especially the last bit... Meh, I don't know. When I put it down I felt it was overall the weakest of the three, and that's saying something as I felt The Twelve was considerably weaker than The Passage. 

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Still waiting for it in the UK. Kindle costs as much as the hardback so I think I'll do a ser Scot and go for that :)

I'm currently reading "the stand" and I can now see why Cronin said that book influenced him a lot. They share a lot in common.

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Res Snow,

PAPER!

Regarding The Stand it started strong but the end was a mess. I'm enjoying the conclusion of The City of Mirrors.

I'm sort of dreading hitting the ending given the vast majority hate that about the Stand. I vaguely recall the TV show losing the plot at the end so guess it's at the same point.

I think "the thirteen" was an improvement over "the passage" so I'm glad to hear from a few places that city of mirrors is a strong conclusion. It felt like the "present/our future" was almost wrapped up in the last book so I'm interested to see what they are doing there.

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I just finished it. I don't know how i feel about the ending yet. I think I'm just sad its over. I started reading shortly after the Passage came out and I've loved this story for years. I agree with your assessment though. one thing still bugs me....

Spoiler

who helped save Theo and Mausami? if it really was Peter because the farmstead was out of time or whatever, I think it sucks that we didnt get to read that part. besides, an empty tin can was found around the time Theo found the dog, Peter was a viral by the time he went to the farmstead. ugh and who put the piano there?

thats all. the rest of the book was amazing.

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7 hours ago, blitzen said:

I just finished it. I don't know how i feel about the ending yet. I think I'm just sad its over. I started reading shortly after the Passage came out and I've loved this story for years. I agree with your assessment though. one thing still bugs me....

  Hide contents

who helped save Theo and Mausami? if it really was Peter because the farmstead was out of time or whatever, I think it sucks that we didnt get to read that part. besides, an empty tin can was found around the time Theo found the dog, Peter was a viral by the time he went to the farmstead. ugh and who put the piano there?

thats all. the rest of the book was amazing.

I seem to recall that Amy said it was Peter who saved them early in the book in Peter's recurring dreams of his life with Amy at the farmstead.[/quote]

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I was a little impatient when Fanning started relating his back story,  but yeah, eventually I got into it, even though there were times he sounded faintly like Lestat when he adresses Alicia especially.  Also him sounding too much like a comic-book villain when he was

fighting Amy and Peter

I also had an issue with

the civilization that developed after Fanning was just about the same ours,with minor differences

Anyway, while The Passage remains the best one of the lot, I thought City of Mirrors was very good; it's parting with most of its major characters was moving, and I'll  take it over The Stand any day. 

 

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no spoilers. City of Mirrors is on my desk.  And there are about 8 books on my kindle to be read. This is what happens when my commute via train (and reading time) turns into 3+ hours per day of bumper to bumper traffic.  gag

 

 I have been waiting for this book for years.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I read this a few weeks ago.  Overall I loved it, and Ser Scot I agree with your assessment. 

There were, however, a few things I disliked:

Spoiler

 

- I hated the way Alicia's story ended.  Why did she kill herself?  It made absolutely no sense to me that she wouldn't go with Michael.

- The civilization that developed post-exodus was more or less culturally identical to our own, which seems unlikely given the history of the world to that point.

- The Iowa interludes were completely pointless.  We already had plenty of foreshadowing about what was happening from the Kerrville plotlines.

- Fanning was a little cartoonish, and I'm not sure that I liked that he got his own happy ending after murdering the world.

 

And, naturally, a couple of questions:

Spoiler

- WHY THE HELL DID ALICIA KILL HERSELF

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Did anyone else notice at the end that Logan mentions to his son that he could have the farm for 5 dollars? When did the dollar come back? How did they know about dollars? The survivors from the ship only ever knew about Texans. Why not 5 Texans rather than dollars? A mistake or just not explained to us?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Loved it. The epilogue really touched me... So glad they finally found Amy. Was it ever explained though on how the Easter Virus originated in Europe?  Did fanning somehow spread it to the rest of the world?  Were the 700 survivors the only humans remaining by the end?  And did what did  Michael find in England... 

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On 09/07/2016 at 2:27 AM, Gregor Stark Nekkid said:

Did anyone else notice at the end that Logan mentions to his son that he could have the farm for 5 dollars? When did the dollar come back? How did they know about dollars? The survivors from the ship only ever knew about Texans. Why not 5 Texans rather than dollars? A mistake or just not explained to us?

Yeah probably a typo on the authors part. That or the survivors learnt enough about the pre apocalypse to resurrect the dollar 

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On 7/8/2016 at 3:57 PM, Gregor Stark Nekkid said:

Did anyone else notice at the end that Logan mentions to his son that he could have the farm for 5 dollars? When did the dollar come back? How did they know about dollars? The survivors from the ship only ever knew about Texans. Why not 5 Texans rather than dollars? A mistake or just not explained to us?

Australia uses dollars as well, so my guess is that when the descendents of the Texan survivors made it to Australia, they discovered information/ruins/literature/whatever regarding the dollar.

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