D There is a 4-way, not kidding, betwee Ok, in one of my status updates or maybe 2 I said there was a lot of sex in this book, that it was like porn but with an actual plot and good dialogue. D There is a 4-way, not kidding, between Chicago and 3 vampires. Totally hot and while the first encounter is all on page, the rest are sort of glossed over but you get the salient points.
Seriously, how did I not know that vampires and shifters could have sex marathons and not need to recover, like - ever? Moving on, but staying with the topic. And that blow up? Yeah, it was dumb, and again like I said in a status update, totally took us to Dramaville, USA, which disappointed me and really left me reeling because where did that come from? I won't spoil what it was about, but trust me - it was dumb and blown all out of proportion and then their "make-up" journey was super odd and kinda head scratching.
Though the make up sex was good. So, I do recommend this for the smoking hot love scenes. As for the story itself, I wasn't kidding earlier when I said I was enjoying the story. The bulk of the story not counting sex is about the brothers trying to get the info they stole from the NSA to the PP so they could warn everyone. The brothers also add to the hilarity by trying to protect baby bro Chicago from amorous sex fiends, and clearly fail - epically.
There are also sub-stories for the brothers in this book, but I haven't looked to see who gets their own book. Aside from the unnecessary drama between Chicago and Aurelo, and the fact that this needed another read thru by an editor or anyone to catch the mistakes, this was still very entertaining and the 3 stars are because I didn't like Dramaville and never want to visit that disgusting place again! Plus the improbability of the book as a whole, I give this a solid 3 stars and a desire to read more of the books in the series.
I am curious because Book 1 ends on a kind of cliffy so wasn't surprised by that , and I want to hear what the PP has to say for itself. I did pick this up for free from Amazon so had I paid real money View all 10 comments. Apr 11, ilovebakedgoods Teresa rated it it was ok Shelves: So, I read this because a friend of mine made it sound hilariously bad so I was very curious. Well, cue up the massive eye rolls, some serious head-on-desk action, and many many guffaws and giggles at some of the situations in this one. First off, the character names are so bad - all named after the cities in which they were conceived.
I thought only celebrities did this! Secondly, Chicago our MC in this one is such a twink and he doesn't even realize it. He is young, innocent Don't judge me He is young, innocent, inexperienced and eager, which makes him great fodder for the vampires who decide to use him in trade for the necessary supplies that Chicago and his many 5 city-named brethren will need for I forget what the rest of the plot was, something to do with paranormals being hunted down by the human race and so the paranormals shifters, vamps, etc have to gather up the necessary resources to defend themselves from whatever it is that the bad men will do to them.
Who can remember serious plot points when you've got a gangbang between the very horny, yet innocent, Chicago and the 3 vampires who need his pure blood so they won't have to feed frequently. Yes, his blood is pure enough to stave off the hunger in these vamps, yet they never seem sated enough to leave the poor guy alone for a day or two.
Miraculously, when he becomes a slut after many orgies, his blood remains pure. Not sure how that works. It may have been explained but, like I said, who can remember when you've got orgies to read about? There is a sweet ish budding romance between Chicago and one of the head vampire's body men. All this in the span of a book under pages long!
While this one was severely eye-roll-inducing, it won't stop me from reading the entire series. It is just too fun to leave alone! Mar 12, Teetee rated it it was ok Shelves: I was also perplexed by the reviews by my GR circle of friends-they were so low! Then I really got into the book and the problems began to very quickly manifest themselves. So much went so wrong so quickly. For starters I was a little irritated by all the brothers being named for cities.
Maybe one or two brothers, hey that might be cute, but all of them it lost its charm and lent itself to some lame, unfunny jokes throughout the story. So the boys take off on a mission and make it as far as a vampire stronghold before problems arise and they have to leverage a night with our very willing young MC Chicago for supplies, a new vehicle, weapons and so on. One of the vamps tries to help Chicago unobtrusively and we get a set up for more burgeoning relationship between the two.
I got an initial impression of Aurelo that he was kind, charmed and smitten with Chicago, just utterly taken with our boy. That impression changed later in the story… The four men plus Chicago go off for a good ole fashioned orgy. There is definite attraction between Chicago and the director and Chicago and Aurelo, and I actually think I might have liked Chicago with the director as a love interest.
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He started off cold but definitely warmed up to Chicago by the next morning. He also agrees to let Aurelo go along with them after that vamp craftily gets himself invited. Meanwhile Jules, another vampire who is obviously a jilted love of the older brother Seattle, also gets told to go along for the ride.
The potential was there for a good story line AND side line romance. Chicago is immature and whiny, and Aurelo is weirdly obsessive and yet wants to share with other guys! I at least had hopes for Jules and Seattle, but their relationship gets glossed over, one minute they are fighting, then they have a chat and are good to go. No romance at all! How oblivious is this guy after all the comments and leering Hadley does??
And the big kicker to me is the rest of the series.
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I thought that even though it started off bad, it was only the first in a shifter series, and you have to give it a little leeway because usually the first one or two stories are not as fleshed out. But though there are three more books in the series, only one other book features one of the brothers! Why get us involved with the family and then veer off into unknown characters??
No thanks, not interested! View all 9 comments. Feb 10, Charly rated it it was ok. Melodramatic writing ruins what could have been a good story Warning: Lots of shifter types exist in the world all together, and they have to join forces to fight off the threat to their existence. Sep 16, Firenz marked it as not-going-to-read Shelves: The cover is gorgeous, but on careful consideration I decided to pass on this novel. I personally can't imagine sharing the person I love with other men, watching them be intimate. That is why a three-way in a commited relationship is an immediate NO for me.
Sep 25, Line marked it as maybe. May 01, Hc rated it liked it Shelves: First of all the blurb is kind of confusing when comparing to the book. Kind of turns him into a slut.. Ok so the first encounter with all I can overlook. But the rest This was But the rest of the behavior just doesn't match Chicago's personality.
It just doesn't mesh to me. Perhaps others will see it differently. I will have to read blurb on the next one to see if I want to bother continuing the story View all 5 comments. Sep 16, Shannon rated it it was ok. Book 1, The Coming Storm, is a wonderful introduction setting up the beginning premise, as the title suggests.
But the great thing about this particular book, is that as a book it is complete. You get a really touching story while still setting up the for the other books to come! I have to mention this beautiful hot cover as I am a visual person and this great cover really attracts and pulls in the reader to The Coming Storm. I loved the sex scenes as they were so hot and steamy and written in such a detailed way that I found myself wanting more and more of it.
The way the MC was desired sexually by so many men and at times more than one at a time as that is my kind of sexy story. I enjoyed reading from the characters POV as the author kept it moving fast and on point through out the story. Case Statement of Dominic Swain regarding a book briefly in his possession in the winter of Case Statement of Sasha James, assistant archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a series of paranormal sightings.
I'm assuming the coffin is related to the Spiral too, although there's not much to base that on so far Still, the only Spiral-related statements in the given period seem to be Mag and Mag Still, I thought I'd try giving it a look. I think they actually say in a previous epsiode that the Lichtenburg figures are fractals. Other than that agree with your last part. Michael is only one part of the spiral.
This seems like another part. Not buying the coffin as part of the spiral though and never have. There seems very little to link them except the coffin colour and the episode feels very different in motivation. They might have mentioned that before, I don't remember. I was just quoting the bits from Crew that hinted at the Spiral. I've always thought of him as a Vast person. As he says, the shape it took belonged more rightly to the sky, which is probably why I personally never suspected the Spiral.
Yeah, that is a stretch, I'll admit that, but at this point I can't really figure out where else to put it, unless it's part of its own, yet mostly unseen, power That just seems unlikely, given that we're almost halfway through the story. That both describes the coffin and the New Door, but I agree, the episodes involving the coffin feel a lot different from the ones regarding the Spiral. No warping of the mind, no fractals, no weird angles. Maybe no fractals or weird angles, but it definitely had an effect on some people's minds.
The guy who hangs onto the coffin in his apartment is compelled, seemingly against his will or even his knowledge, to open the coffin. And Daisy's partner's entering the coffin seemed to be out of his control. Not sure that means the coffin is definitely attributed to the Spiral, but it seems to have a similar mind-altering effect on people. And I apologize for not having all the right names; I suck with one-off names, and I'm too lazy to go look them up.
The thing is I see that almost more as a point against it being Spiral. I feel like the Spiral is more about tricking people than compelling them.
Inequality and the Coming Storm by Edoardo Campanella - Project Syndicate
As far as I recall all the Spiral statements seem to suggest that the people have some degree of choice, it's just that what they see is so warped that they can't really make that choice. Compelling someone in their sleep doesn't really feel like it fits with fooling the perceptions to me. Like I said, I don't mean that those incidents for sure make the coffin part of the Spiral; I really have no clue. I was just pointing out that it does in fact have some sort of effect on people's minds.
Maybe not warping, like the Spiral, but definitely an altered state of consciousness or a pattern of behavior different from the person's norm. I wasn't meaning to seem hostile. Honestly the coffin just seems to have an incredibly confusing spread of aspects that makes it incredibly difficult to come to any conclusions about. Oh, no, I didn't think you sounded hostile! I just wanted to clear up my original comment, which was made in a pre-caffeinated state. With warping of minds I was more refering to How the Spiral usually seems to twist reality. But yeah, I forgot about the guy in Mag2 constantly waking up moments from unlocking the coffin.
What makes you put the coffin under Spiral? Categorising the coffin has always seemed very difficult to me, but that's not one of the ones I would've gravitated to. Based on what we've seen of him one would assume that Gerard would know enough not to burn it without understanding what he was doing, although if anyone knows how to trick people it is presumably the Spiral.
Alternatively maybe he wanted to avoid Mary getting it for fear that she'd do something worse? It just seems odd that Gerard would choose to free what seems to be one of the Spiral's stronger manifestations based on his apparent loyalty to Beholding. I'm pretty much only putting the coffin under the Spiral because of a few similarities. Nothing that I personally find convincing, but I can't figure out where else it fits in. The colour of both the coffin and Michael's door in Mag47 is pale yellow which is also the case for the stole in Mag20 , and both are warm to the touch. Both of them also lead to spaces that shouldn't physically be able to be there, a staircase or a hallway.
Mag85 shows that stairs at least aren't off limits for the Spiral, so I guess it could make sense. Isn't there one called The End? I might have got that wrong - but that's one I associate with the coffin. Probably the one responsible for the happenings in Mag29, Mag64 and Mag70, amongst others. Only reason I'd put the coffin under the End would be because I'm looking forward to it popping up in another statement at least, I've always been interested in what was up with that particular item. They were described as having an 'odd density' and 'Michael's hands were unusually heavy and sharp.
Well, he could hardly be called "Michael" back in '96, when Crew didn't get away until '98, could he? Whenever I heard "long blond hair" I assumed "slightly messy sandy blonde" but I'm now processing it as "platinum blond hair halfway down his back" and I can't help but find the image of an eldritch monstrosity wearing Jason Isaac's wig from the Harry Potter films hilarious.
Though I would agree that part was probably the entity known now as "Michael", which makes a lot of sense, other manifestations could be active as well as servants. I think the coffin is related to the Stranger, mostly because it employs the same lure-type deception as the Anglerfish or the basement in Still Life. I don't think the electricity was actually the Michael we know though. Just another aspect of the Spiral, which seems to mesh with Michael's hand and stomach comment, in that he doesn't "own" any of the spiral's manifestations. Not once, in all the years that I was chased by its Of course, I know why that is now, but at the time it did nothing to dull my fear.
This will be important later on when we learn more about the Spiral's motivations, if we ever get more than "it likes to make people scared". True, but so do some of the other powers. The spiral likes making people scared either of things that aren't real like the fake storms or by trapping people in bizzare mazes, afraid they will never find their way out.
It's likes to confuse, and make one doubt their senses. The way I interpret it the Spiral likes to leave people some element of choice, but first it confuses them so much that they can't really make it. So I think in this way The Spiral actually hurting people wouldn't really satisfy it much, it wants people to hurt themselves. These episodes, truly exploring the avatars or representatives of the various forces, how they come to be, how they see their relationship with their power , etc Lots to unpack for this episode and 89 Twice as bright.
Jude Perry clearly sees herself and her fellow cultists as serving a Deity, Desolation , and sees a conflict like a crusade or holy war between them. Jane Prentiss similarly saw The Flesh Hive as deified and perhaps even saw herself as deified for being its host and saw the Powers in opposition, at least some of them. For Mike, Vastness is complete in and of itself, no deification necessary. I wonder what such a transformative experience would be for Beholding? Is that the difference between Elias and the others? Mike Crew sees the Powers as abstract concepts though, powers to be used and interacted with, much the way Mary Keay or Leitner did.
He picked up manifestations of power, The Leitners , identified them, learned what he could and generally discarded them as worthless for his purposes. Fractals come up a lot and we tend to associate them with Es Mentiaras or The Web. Could it be that all the powers have their own fractals? When he spoke of Es Mentiaras or an arching branch of the twisted deceit he saw through the deception and saw that Michael was mimicking The Vast to torment him.
Like all of the various servants, representatives, and avatars, they quickly learn to feed their Power. He may not have worshipped The Vast outright, but he clearly fed it, and often enough that he cannot even recall them all. John feeds Beholding without even knowing it. Noteworthy , Mike bound his tormentor in this case Michael, to Ex Altiora.
I wonder if that had any impact on our favorite deceiver like the table binding did with NotThem? We never saw any indication of it, but would Michael really notice if he lost a pinky toe? Like I said, lots to unpack.
Hope one of my first posts proved an informative one. Hope to be active in this awesome community.
Inequality and the Coming Storm
The avatars freely gave themselves up to their respective powers. In a way, you could say they fed themselves completely to those powers. If Beholding feeds on knowledge, then perhaps its transformative event is when someone willingly gives it all of their own knowledge - every memory and experience they've ever had. That would be time consuming in the normal 'make a statement' way, but maybe there's an artifact that works more directly. You mentioned the Leitner book that tried to 'read' Michael Crew. Some other folks have speculated it's related to Beholding and I agree.
Sasha only got through three months in artifact storage before she couldn't stand it any longer and transferred out, but Elias worked there for five years. Maybe he found that book or another artifact there which facilitated his own transformation. I really enjoyed reading through your post!
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I'm new here too and absolutely agree this community is fantastic. It's been really fun checking out everyone's theories. It's interesting that The Vast's servants seem to be vulnerable to normal weapons while Jude Perry and her ilk seem capable of rebounding from just about any injury given their waxy nature. It has me torn wondering if Michael Crew is really dead, or if it really is just that different powers grant different abilities.
Could also be that it just suits his purposes to play dead until the three musketeers have moved on. After all, to an outsider, it may look like the agents of the Beholding are fracturing, representing a possible vulnerability to be exploited at some point. Mostly because it would kinda tick me off if he was really dead so easily.
Unless, as others have suggested, Daisy really has been claimed by another power, which would make sense. It really did seem too easy. Elias has basically stated that he has the ability to track where Jon is and who he's with. So unless Elias suddenly got very sloppy it seems likely that he knows what's coming. Here's how I see this playing out:. Elais allows Jon, Daisy, and Baseera to interrogate him and gives his statement. During the statement, he confesses to the murder of Leitner.
So everything seems great. He then reveals that he followed through on his threat and gave the evidence for Calvin Benchley's murder to the police. Daisy is then arrested or otherwise removed from the board. At this point, Elias allows himself to be arrested or maybe he dies somehow.
This leaves Jon free of legal trouble and back at the Institute. Maybe even replacing Elias. He has more resources than he did, but still no idea what's going on. Interesting that Michael has been killed off, considering how prominent he seemed with all those statements. I honestly thought he would be more important.
Maybe he isn't quite dead. Super excited for the inevitable Elias confrontation and following a batshit Daisy. She is one of my favorites so I'm happy she's back. I love getting to hear from these people who are involved with the powers. If he will reject the Beholding or give into it? Major players are getting offed left and right now, so I wonder if we're going to see some new faces emerge as the season progresses.
Jane's dead, Jurgen's dead, Mary and Gerard are dead, and now Mike. But it's possible her heart is not beating and is, in a traditional sense, "dead": Question, this didn't seem like enough to make a whole post over. I see a warning for gun violence in the show notes. Is there just dialogue about it or are there sfx too?
Only one gun related sound effect from what I can tell, at Either way, I've removed the few instances of violence, physical or gun related, the file is here. I took it to mean that Crew bound that particular form to the book, preventing distortion from using it and following him anymore as it no longer had a form suitable to brave the vast.
Yeah I think that's basically it. In exchange for his service The Vast used the connection between the Lichtenburg Figure's form and The Vast to trap it. This episode threw me for a loop. I was low-key expecting Jon to continue to travel around getting increasingly beat up and hazed for being a crappy Archivist by our resident evil powers.
I did enjoy Mikes statement, especially his descriptions of the forest and battle with the Spiral. Shane to see Mike go, but oh well. Wonder if the Silk Cut cigarettes of Johnathan is a reference to occult detective John Constantine who also smokes them. These episodes have just been excellent. I wasn't expecting to get Michael Crew this fast but I'm pleased as punch about it. Love how jovial he was, it added a different element of creepiness I appreciated. At this point my ultimate dream is that Gerard isn't actually dead and gets to make a statement.
I agree that Mike Crew was not what I expected after he trapped an innocent person in their own personal, never ending hell. This contrasts with similar avatars or representatives like Jude, Jane, Michael, etc It would be a special kind of delicious cruelty to have the latter - so that's what I'm betting on. What do you guys think? I've just seen the RQ twitter, and it looks like next week will be the Big Confrontation! Do we know what the book in Cyrillic that tried to "read him" was?
He buried it on a lonely stretch of moorland I think these episodes are the exposition that clarifies some of these powers, what they are and how they fit together and interact. We saw that, as with Simms, more than one power took an interest in Crew. The Fractal Table that bound not them is literally referred to as the fractal table and is clearly an artifact manifested by The Web. I know it is called that on the wiki, but I don't think it is called that in the show. I did a search for "fractal table" in the transcripts and got nothing.
I think the table has a spiderweb pattern. Reminds me of one of my posts from a while ago. Does this mean that the Vast is a subset of the Spiral, or is it just that Michael's thing with vertigo marked an affinity for both? In this case, the spiral was fighting for Michael Crew, but lost him when Crew pledged himself fully to the vast. I think that the lightning strike was a random natural event, and The Spiral liked the fractal it formed and the fear it could cause by playing off the vent that formed it.
So, The Spiral followed Crew around playing on his fears. Crew realized he needed a power to protect him, and he realized that the vast would work well for him, and the fact that the formative event for him is also related to the vast probably made it easier for him to swear himself over to the vast.
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Hey, it is great seeing you are so enthusiastic about the show. I so not have a patreon account and can only listen to this episode on wednesday night. You posting this is kind of a spoiler for me. I would appreciate it if you could hold back next time. I only made the post early today because I knew I would be busy tonight and didn't want to forget to do it. It is now marked spoiler until the episode releases tonight, sorry about spoilage. We are still testing out new things on the sub and seeing how people feel about the Discussions going up earlier is one of those things.
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