2.1 KiB
[D] The Nightmare Stacks Ch 2, Moon question
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Author: u/SkyTroupe *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8ul07t/d_the_nightmare_stacks_ch_2_moon_question/
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Score: 4
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Created: 2018-06-28T16:28:34
Post:
So I started this book on a recommendation from someone on here. I just finished Chapter 2: Adversary and was very confused. Is the Moon gone in this story? What other background information have I missed from starting at book 7?
I was told this series started a new protagonist and story in book 7 so I could jump right in.
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+8] Time flies like an arrow (44 minutes later)
Chapter 2 doesn't take place on Earth, indicated with the line "constellations similar to Earth's". This alternate planet hasn't been featured before in the series, though the Lovecraftian multiverse has (going all the way back to The Atrocity Archives). The authorial intent is probably for it to be alien and confusing to the reader, a thrown-in-feet-first introduction to a society unlike our own, but how much that works for you is an open question. Stross wrote a crib sheet for the novel here, which contains spoilers, but also lays things out a little bit more clearly if you really detest the slow-roll of information.
u/cstross [+4] (19 hours later)
Exactly right: chapter 2 starts out on another version of Earth in a parallel universe — one that started out as ours but diverged about 200,000 years ago. Since which time, among other things, the Moon has been destroyed (for reasons that will become clear later in the book).
The people we see in chapter 2 are not, actually, specimens of H. Sapiens sapiens, but our distant relatives ...
u/SkyTroupe [+1] (20 hours later)
Awesome. Thank you! I'm listening to the audio book so I guess I need to pay more attention to word choice.
u/traverseda [+2] With dread but cautious optimism (an hour later)
I always like to ping /u/cstross whenever there's discussion about his work here, so this is that ping.