#william latham

Chapter Twelve of Eternity Unleashed: A Spoiler-Filled Commentary

The final chapter of Balor's backstory novella is short, and consists of Balor’s musings about what happened to him. 

For the first time, we see a character reckoning with the "immortality" part of Balor's immortality treatment, rather than just the physical invulnerability which has dominated the story so far.

Balor tells himself he’s been set free, and that being caged in a randomly floating asteroid until further notice is actually a win for him. Yes, it’s mind palace time, folks.

He immerses himself in his mum’s paintings, which must be fantastic for his mental health.

He wonders why the women in his life always leave him, and why his friends betrayed him. He thinks he should have tried to be a father to his adopted siblings. He decides children are more malleable when raised by the state, so the family subculture can’t radicalize them.

He contemplates how terror is the ultimate emotion: it’s on, or it’s off.

He gets into bodybuilding.

He hopes maybe an advanced civilization will find him, so he can learn from them, like how to be a better dictator and stuff. If primitives find him, he’ll have to teach them. 

Whatever happens, he prepares for it: “I don’t choose to allow my fate to be decided by others.” He’s *so* close to getting it.

Anyway, there’s Balor, in the BSHCI, with his paintings, in his mind palace, for a super long time. According to the Powysverse Continuity, his incarceration takes place "centuries before" we next see him. Considering the known psychological effects of solitary confinement I'd say the events of Chapter 12 would cover a few years at most, even though Balor perceives the elapsed time to be much longer.

The Progrons' treatment of Balor is very difficult to admire. It seems they have either an extremely cruel, or an extremely improvisational and ignorant justice system to have done this to him. Since the head of the supreme court also seems to be world president, I'm guessing the latter. I don't know how Talian can justify such an action, if he really believes what he says about Balor's being just a man like any other.

Yes, Balor was fixing to do exactly this to everyone who opposed him, but isn't that why we're on Talian's side and not Balor's? What crimes would Balor have reasonably been charged with, since to all appearances anyone with enough power is allowed to do everything he did? And I'm not saying Balor should've been allowed to do all this, but that's exactly my point.

You could argue that the punishment is proportionate in an “eye for an eye” way, if you assume everyone sent into space would also have been in solitary confinement (and yeah I'm not arguing that having a cellmate makes the sentencing fairer, but it would be that bit less cruel).

But why expect Progron to have progressed beyond that concept of justice by now? They haven't even thought up representative democracy, so voting Balor out wasn't an option. You can criticize Talian's decisions, but he didn't make the world, and he's not used to thinking.

---

So anyway, here we are at the end of the first story in the Powysverse chronology. To recap, the first novel ever published in this series was the Balor-centric Resurrection, and Eternity Unleashed is the first part of a three-part book that was published a few years later in order to provide Balor with a backstory. Some flashbacks from the original edition of Resurrection were ported into Eternity Unleashed.

I guess this novella must contain some really important foundation for the worldbuilding of the series, and that will unfold as we go along.

The question is:

Is Eternity Unleashed Good?

The Amazon reviews suggest that some readers loved it. See here. It's highly rated on Goodreads as well.

I didn't really enjoy it myself. The first 88 pages were hard work. After that it became less like homework for me.

In Context

To be fair, the story isn’t meant to be read as slowly as I have done (10 pages a day, or to the end of a chapter, whichever comes first). Nor is the first part of the book meant to be read separately from the other two. And an unbroken tone of solemnity, combined with a slow pace, is something it has in common with Y1; and many readers want to be in that atmosphere again. 

So why didn't I enjoy it? What's wrong with me?

If you have a character we already know we don’t like and - crucially - aren’t rooting for, it’s a bold choice to dwell in his POV and never attempt to make him sympathetic, or have him charm us into forgetting what he’s capable of. I'm certainly not one of those readers that needs to like every major character. But you have to do *something* to make the character and/or the story enjoyable, and whatever that could have been, by page 88 I still didn't have it.

It's not enough to say I haven't read the whole volume. It shouldn't take 88 pages of work before the story started to engage my interest. It’s only my dedication to the series that got me to stick with it that long. 

We have two other backstories of major characters before Breakaway, and Balor's backstory is nearly three times as long as either of those, and I'm not sure it needed to be. There are several places where it gets repetitive.

What Eternity Unbound has going for it is that it's a pretty well-thought-out bit of worldbuilding. I can't say I ever got pulled into Progron, it was more like I was viewing it from a detached perspective. But the fridge logic works, and Balor is a psychologically plausible character on paper.

Gender Balance

NB running total = 28

F running total = 16

M running total = 29

Bechdel Score: 0. Only in Milsa's meeting with her counter-revolutionaries do any two female characters talk to each other, and even then they're talking about Balor.

Milsa does lead the movement to save her planet, though. So there's that.

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Return to Series Preface

Chapter Eleven of Eternity Unleashed: A Spoiler-Filled Commentary

The penultimate chapter has Talian trying to work out what to do about Balor. He figures the counter-revolution is basically a matter of persistence - everyone *is* immortal and invulnerable, after all - but they might have to dismember Balor and put him into orbit or something, if they want to keep him out of action. He’s a big name, with big influence (but apparently not so big that removing him won't neutralize his fan base).

Balor calls Talian in for a meeting and introduces him to Stepford/Zombie Milsa. He wants Talian to rehabilitate her. 

Also, Balor tells Talian there’s a plot against him.  It was, of course, completely foreseeable that it would leak unless they rolled it out with equivalent speed to Balor’s coup, in which Balor got rather lucky if you ask me.

Talian points out Balor’s rule must be a bit fragile if he thinks a stage show is going to overthrow him, and what is the point of all this anyway? Who said Balor should be in control of everything and everyone simply because he wants to be? 

Talian insists he was talking to Teyla not because he was conspiring with him, but because he missed his sister; and Teyla was all furtive about it because he was afraid of being tortured as an associate of Milsa’s.

Balor kind of believes him, but anyway, he’s been working on a sonar weapon that will incapacitate the rebels with fear. All Balor’s loyalists will have fear-cancelling headphones. Then all the rebels will be packed off into outer space to think eternally about what they’ve done. At this point, Talian realizes he should have put a bit more effort into his opposition research.

Then Milsa goes “suprize b!tch,” and turns on the sound weapon and Balor passes out from fear. Milsa tears up some guards’ uniforms and ties Balor up with the strips. 

She explains to Talian, who apparently couldn't have worked this out for himself, that she faked being a zombie, has been spying like mad this whole time, and also switched the sound signals. Teyla’s gang come in and take the unconscious Balor-ists off to jail.

And that about wraps it up for the counter-revolution. What are these crazy kids going to get up to next?

Talian’s got to be world president, according to the rules of a spontaneous election called then and there by Teyla in which Teyla is the only one with a vote. Now that you mention it, it's never directly stated what the branches of government actually are, or how the leaders are appointed. It seems to be a matter of vibes.

Milsa announces her plan to find an antidote to immortality. Talian points out she’s only got an eighth grade education. Milsa points out that she has some free time, and lifelong learning is a concept she means to explore.

And everybody gives a Y2-style fake laugh, sweeps up the last of the broken glass, and gets on with their work.

---

Hmmm - I hope those terrifying weapons and eternal asteroid punishments Balor devised won't get turned against anyone. He couldn't have created them all by himself. Other people must know how to work them, right?

Like - what if people aren't keen on Milsa's immortality antidote? They were living the lives they wanted until Balor threw a wobbly. Sure, she inspired their resistance, but maybe it wasn't so much about higher values as wanting the torture to stop?

[shrug]

---

What remains is the trial of Balor (nice that they’re following due process, according to their lights). 

Talian (who seems to be the entire judiciary, in addition to being world president, and also hasn't recused himself for the obvious conflict of interest) tells Balor he’s condemned for not thinking through the implications of his invention, and for offering an impractical solution.

This seems like a management problem, if you ask me. A junior dev shouldn’t be physically able to break the production codebase, and it’s never their fault if they do. To be fair, Talian put his finger on this earlier, when he pointed out that Balor had never had to hear the word "no" in his life. But if he's going to run the planet successfully, Talian really needs to start to generalize this kind of insight.

Anyway, they go on like this, chewing over their past friendship and such. Talian says,

“'I hope one day, you’ll understand that you were wrong. Without… decency. There is no purpose for… having purpose. Until our psychology can no longer produce… thoughts like yours, we cannot live forever. We’re not worthy of it.'”

Balor doesn’t get it. Talian rolls his eyes and slams Balor into his asteroid jail and chucks him into space. 

The walls have a permanent faint luminescence. Balor has a bed and he has his mum’s paintings. That’s all you need when you’re immortal and invulnerable.

Talian feels a bit bad about what Balor must be experiencing, in solitary confinement from which he can never escape, on a timescale of which the mind cannot conceive - even though Balor intended to do exactly that to all the counter-revolutionaries, and Talian would have ended up in the exact same position if Milsa hadn't pulled the switcheroo. Oh well, Talian shrugs, what can you do. 

They put a warning sign on the asteroid in case anyone stumbles across Balor (it’s a small universe, don’t you know). The state of the planet is neatly wrapped up as Talian and Milsa spell out the subtext of everything for a couple of pages, then get on with their work.

Gender Balance

Not Specified

Balor’s guards

Teyla’s commanders

Talian’s guards

NB running total = 28

Female

No new characters.

F running total = 16

Male

No new characters.

M running total = 29

Back to Chapter 10 of this story

Forth to Chapter 12 of this story

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Return to Series Preface

Chapter Ten of Eternity Unleashed: A Spoiler-Filled Commentary

Talian goes back to work. Did I mention that he works at Balor's lab? In case that wasn't clear. I don't remember when Balor hired him.

Balor is enthused about some space weapons he's slapped together in case aliens attack. Talian thinks these aliens, if there even are any, are just Balor’s way of distracting the population, and that the weapons are more likely to be turned against dissidents (for whatever that’s worth).

Talian thinks over how to do a counter-revolution. Force can’t work, so he has to change hearts. How do you do that? This population loves stories. To keep the counter-revolution clandestine, the stories will have to be preached in small groups.

Seems inevitable that it will leak; Balor's revolution supposedly only kept the element of surprise because he turned it around so fast. But also, people were equally surprised after Balor's revolution had been going on for some time. Oh, well.

We see Balor at home. Turns out he took home Milsa’s remains and resurrected them, but all he got was a zombie/Stepford version of her that smiles and nods but has no higher cognitive functions. The error of his ways is ever so slightly beginning to dawn on him, though not in the sense of actually thinking he's wrong about anything.

Teyla and Emmera, an ex-performer, organize a distributed mass performance of an anti-Balor play. The crowd of counter-revolutionaries (out in the boondocks where they won’t be caught... I guess they have to go there en masse and in person since word of mouth is the only communication channel? but at least an unexpected cluster of GPS signals won't give them away...) Where was I? The crowd of counter-revolutionaries cheers “For Milsa!” They are very enthusiastic and eager to get their insurgency on.

Gender Balance

Not Specified

A bunch of counter-revolutionaries.

NB running total = 25

Female

Emmera, Teyla’s friend, ex-performer who now works in the fields, a bit overweight from her food habit. Perturbed by seeing Milsa’s execution, envies the ability to die.

F running total = 16

Male

No new characters.

M running total = 29

Back to Chapter 9 of this story

Forth to Chapter 11 of this story

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Chapter Nine of Eternity Unleashed: A Spoiler-Filled Commentary

Wow! Balor's plan is working a treat! These avocado-scoffing millennials, who don't want to work, have been scared straight and are more productive than ever! Talian even remarks that they'll have to think about paying people, the way things are going.

Talian points out that the population's missing motive for working - besides fear of being publicly tortured for slacking, which is the only non-banned form of entertainment now - is child-rearing. Balor blows off the idea; families are, like, old hat. Of course Balor would think that. It's not like his sole motivation has been to keep his family close to him, or anything.

---

Milsa is conspiring with six followers in the woods, where there will be no "listening devices". What listening devices? She shouldn't worry so much, since there are obviously no networks to connect them to.

Observation: This is when the plot starts to feel like it’s actually moving a little bit, and the paper-doll characters start to become more animated and relatable. 

The economist in Milsa's gang explains that, now Balor’s got the planet back to work, all the arenas are closed except the biggest one in each town, which is dedicated to public torture of the workshy.

Problem: if no more criminals, then people will invent them. 

Solution: get people to see Balor as the criminal.

---

Milsa shows up in Talian’s apartment and argues passionately for him to get a heart, a brain, the nerve.

The scene, like several of those before it, is exhaustive and long-winded (I know, I know, u/pot @ kettle #black). But the story is actually coming alive for the first time in nearly a hundred pages. There are some successful moments of dialogue too.

Anyway, Talian is all like “nope, #TeamBalor” and it turns out Balor is behind the door and he goes "suprize!" and takes Milsa to be publicly tortured because “she lacks purpose”.

Milsa speaks to Talian with conviction, saying that Balor can only hurt her body, but the real torture is seeing what her brother has become. It makes compelling reading. She uses the word “soul”, which, without doing a word count, makes her possibly the only character ever to speak in spiritual terms (other than Xmonolor, who warned of the dangers of “spirit-music”).

---

Observation: I had doubts about an invalid girl character being sanctified by her suffering - why should Milsa be the one to have higher values, in a society where nobody else seems to? Isn't this inching towards discredited trope territory? But the author makes a good case for it, in the context of a society where almost nobody has had to endure pain the way she did. Milsa had no choice but to think for herself a lot of the time because there was presumably no disseminated knowledge of techniques for handling pain. She didn’t have any higher education. And she was geographically and socially isolated; there's no mention of her ever having had friends. And she was facing death, itself, minutes before Balor barged in on the ritual. It makes sense that Milsa’s worldview would be what it is.

---

Talian, who was stigmatized throughout his childhood by Bexan’s refusal to euthanize Milsa, is ashamed of her as he watches her being tortured. Meanwhile, Milsa applies the mental techniques she used to endure pain, and wills herself to die instead of reincorporating. 

An unseen messenger hands Talian a hand-prewritten “if you are reading this I am dead” note.

Teyla visits Talian at night and encourages him to turn. Talian’s organized, Milsa’s followers are not, and they need his skills as well as his contacts. Milsa’s message is starting to get through to her brother.

Gender Balance

Not Specified

Balor’s underling

A messenger, unseen behind Talian

two of Milsa's followers

NB running total = 24

Female

Menair, Milsa's follower, a former librarian

Soram of Annen, Milsa’s follower, formerly professor of military history

F running total = 15

Male

Tefta, Milsa’s follower, formerly chief economist of the Gruyorg Council

Canrom, Milsa’s follower, formerly high up in the Council of Families

M running total = 29

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Chapter Eight of Eternity Unleashed: A Spoiler-Filled Commentary

Teyla, the… town leader, shows up and discusses with Milsa the action to be taken against the… new world order. (This… mannerism in dialogue gets on my… nerves after a while, and it is… really overused in this… story.)

Milsa doesn’t want to run further into the wilderness to try to hide, because that won't work. She reveals that she knows Balor and his obsessiveness, but Talian may be tractable. People are just rolling over for Balor out of spinelessness, apparently because fear was eradicated long before immortality became a thing (supposedly because disease was made unfashionable through eugenics, but that sounds like a matter of opinion). Milsa plans to resist, details TBC.

They go to visit Moriand on his deathbed and he reveals that he’s Balor’s dad, and that Parese foresaw Balor’s destiny and tried to encourage it.

Moriand spells out Milsa’s role in all this in big crayon letters:

“‘Balor has brought about an end to the world as we knew it,’ the old man said. 'And fate, being what it is, has brought you full circle. You are here as a mother who has lost her child. Yes. I know what has been done to you. This world is on the verge of losing her children. All her children. And Balor is a child who lost his mother […]’” 

Just when you think he’s spelled out every possible detail of every subtext ever, he continues:

“'[Balor’s mum] knew that one day, he would fall in love with someone, and that would bring about great changes. You brought that out in him. That love. The love that Parese sought to confuse in him. To set him to work […]'” 

Sounds like quite the Rube Goldberg device Parese set up there. Clearly Parese is the true evil genius of this story.

Milsa asks if Balor’s mum planned this, and Moriand says

“'Planned is probably too strong a word'”

and we get even more explanation. 

By the end of the chapter, we’ve had everything explained and reiterated, so in case we hadn’t worked it out for ourselves, we know everything except what Milsa’s actually going to do about it. She does not know either, and she asks at least half a dozen times.

Gender Balance

Not Specified

No new characters.

NB running total = 20

Female

No new characters.

F running total = 13

Male

Teyla, an old ezariat, currently leader of Milsa's town

M running total = 27

Back to Chapter 7 of this story

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