Morehouse, Lyda - Fallen Host

[oyceter]

Sequel to Archangel Protocol and spoils the ending for it, though both books can be read independently.

I found this book to be more interesting than Archangel Protocol, probably because one of the viewpoint characters is Morningstar (yes, as in Lucifer). Wow, I'm so predictable! Anyway, apparently the end of the world is coming, and various people are looking for the Antichrist. Then there's Emmaline, the Inquisitor sent out by the Vatican to determine if AIs have souls. Then there's Page, the AI from the previous book, who is trying to figure out if he's the Antichrist.

Unfortunately, I kept gritting my teeth any time the characters were in Japan, particularly by how the Dragon (another AI) kept talking about herself as "This one" and whatnot. Just.. lots of minor stuff, like a phrase in which the narrative said something was in "Kanji, Mandarin and English" and I went, "Graaaaah! Kanji is not a language!"

Aside from that, I did like this one better than the first, though they're still a bit fluffy for me, even though I can't quite pinpoint why.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Rurouni Kenshin uses "this one" too, right? To indicate "de gozaimasu?" Is that inaccurate, or just annoying in context?

[oyceter]

Well, when Kenshin uses it, I think it's more a translation for his usage of the first-person pronoun "sessha," which I think is something like "your servant" or "this unworthy one" or something like that. I'm not sure, but I think it's old-fashioned even in Meiji Japan. So I haven't actually read the translation, but I'd guess that it is accurate and the oddity of it fits, because Watsuki is using an odd pronoun.

It annoyed me with the Dragon because there didn't seem to be an explanation for it, and it felt like it was the whole Asian thing. Of course, she did tea ceremony and all that as well. Also... it was odd because she was an AI in 2070-something, and all the other things seemed very pop-culture-y.

I dunno. It was too... Asian dragon-y for me.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

It's been so long since I watched the anime that all I could remember was that Kenshin spoke in a very formal and old-fashioned way. Here we go, via google:

Sessha
"This humble, unworthy, clumsy fool". This one is 16th Century courtly formal Japanese; use it nowadays and Japanese people will understand but they'll stare at you.


Yeah, pretty weird for 2070 unless it's making a big character point of some kind-- a much bigger one than is made by having a character do tea ceremony, which is old-fashioned but not bizarrely so.

[oyceter]

Yeah, there we go! It wasn't even the anachronism, it was that I had the vague suspicion that the details were more put in for Asian-flavor than anything else.