The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Section 2

Please keep all discussion and speculation to the events of Part 2.

No spoiler tags required. Though it would be highly appreciated if you Uncheck Add to my Update Feed to avoid accidentally spoiling things for your good read friends.

Please do not discuss events from later sections/books. Referring back to events from a previous section/book is fine.

I got my wish with the interlude and saw a little more about Janus - so now I'm thinking he probably isn't a bad guy. I've been suspicious of him for years now though, so it is a little tough to let go of my pet theory.

Marcus is in a tough position having to follow commands that are not the best. I'm not done with Part 2 yet (Currently in Chapter 13), but the battle has commenced.

Back in the north, I liked the part after the wolves were killed when everyone started looking to Winter for orders, and the comment that she is "cursed" with competence.

Rasinia is in a tough position. And something is very odd about that second son she's supposed to marry.

So yeah, not super deep thoughts on my part, but I'm certainly enjoying the book!

I didn’t really understand why Wexler needed to add the incompetent general in the story. It’s like he didn’t want to show Marcus losing any battles.

I’m also a little disappointed that the Beast isn’t showing a little more cunning but seems to only know brute force.

Yeah - in the interlude it talked about how the Beast has the power of all those minds - which made me think of a big super computer. Now supposedly he is focused up north and not really directing the south, because of Winter, so maybe some of the brute force comes from that ? But still - seems like he should be a super genius.

Oh the "found you" thing with Winter and the dead bodies was pretty scary!

Yeah super creepy.

Super computer is kind of what I was thinking too. Besides his focus being on Winter I was also thinking maybe the last time the Beast got out people were more primitive and it didn’t need anything but brute force.

Good point. And the beast seems to be more used to domination vs. actually using their knowledge - he's a control freak. Janus seems to be treading very carefully in order to work - flattering, etc.

I just finished this section on my drive to the airport this morning. Wow he sure writes battle scenes well. And argh, with General Whats-his-name in charge, I'd be about ready to switch sides.

It sounds as if Janus IS using the "supercomputer" power of the beast, at least for communications.

I found the interlude very interesting. Janus is making plans, and the last part of Jane has been hanging around to gloat over him? Man she's terrible. He seems to have conned the beast into giving him more autonomy. I'll be curious to see what he does with it.

As I hoped we got the backstory on Janus and his sister. It seems as though he found a demon who might bring his sister back? If not that, what else could it be?

I agree I'm annoyed about the incompetent General. It does seem reasonable though. I don't think it's to make Marcus look good so much as a plot device to give Winter and Recina time for their stories to occur.

I'm wondering if Recina is going to avoid marriage by having her child prodigy buy up all their debt to remove the "stick" option. At least the prince doesn't want to get married either. I do worry she'll get to know him better and it'll become some kind of love triangle.

Poor Winter. None of this is her fault, but I totally get why she feels cursed.

I'm not sure what I expected from the beast. Having wide ranging information doesn't necessarily make someone smart though. As old as it is, though I do expect a pretty high level of cunning. Then again, it's probably also very arrogant and may be a bit too single minded to notice whatever Janis is trying to do.

With regards to the brute force thing though, it must view its bodies as expendable/easily replaced in battle. Marcus's army is not. I'd expect we'll see a more nuanced plan when Winter or Marcus get up close, but maybe I'm wrong.

Either way, I'm really enjoying this book. I'm curious how everything will wrap up as I have no idea how much tragedy Mr. Wexler has in store.

I agree about the debt - I'm pretty sure the child prodigy is going to do something on the debt gambling market to fix the problem. I got impression it was more buying bets on what would be paid off first. Well, they have some inside information there :)

I haven't been able to/won't be able to start part 3 til Tuesday - I'm visiting in Seattle and it's probably not cool to put on headphones.

Yeah, I'm expecting her to use inside information to short the market.