The Cinder Spires

I'm trying to decide where each Spire is located. Albion is Britain (of course), Aurora is America, Olympia is probably Greece, and Ethosia is probably in Africa. No idea where Dalosia or Jereezi would be.

Well for all we know its an entirely different geographic planet (Unless it was confirmed to be Earth and I forgot) or maybe whatever caused The End altered it significantly.

Also, Aurora is more Spain than America going by names, by way of the People's Republic of Haven

(as well as Spain being historically a rival for the British in terms of naval power)

edited 26th Apr '16 4:11:10 PM by 3of4

Just seems like an after the end type of setting to me.

Even if it's not Earth, they're a lot like counterpart cultures.

Maybe. But no one says it has to be *Earth* After the End is all I'm saying.

Olympia for one is definitely based on Greece, with their green and gold colors and laurel as a national symbol.

Going back to cats, I really wasn't a fan of the cats in this book either. I know, they acted like cats, but at some point I felt like "I don't care that the sapient cats are acting like cats, could we focus on writing halfway decent characters and a plot whose pacing doesn't suck?"

Also, Spire Aurora is in America? Is that word of God? Because I'd always thought from the names that it was not-Spain instead.

edited 26th Apr '16 4:27:12 PM by Mars444

I felt the distance between Spires, though never specified, didn't really give the vibe that they were continents away? I mean, yeah, air travel, but the airships aren't that fast.

And I'm not a cat person, so smug smartass "I'm so much better than you, deal with it" sentient cat characters usually grate like hell on me (ugh, I'm getting flashbacks to a Neverending Story book), but the cats here just skirted the line under being annoying. They played up both them actually being competent, and not being so much smug and condescending as matter-of-factly considering themselves superior. So they get a pass.

edited 26th Apr '16 7:16:34 PM by Ninety

I did like the contrast between their attitude and some of the humans treating them like vermin.

Also Bridget's thought about how being buried in them wouldn't be a bad way to die.

Soso, I'm re-reading an noticed something.

Brother Vincent, in being mysterious, says 'there is no east and west in the void.'

Now, normally, this wouldn't be remarkable. Buuuut.

I know Butcher knows Babylon Five.

And one episode (which shows the future of a post apocalyptic Earth) has the Rangers pose as Monks to conserve knowledge and bring back civilization to the world.

And there is no East and West in space.

....*gendo pose* This seems suspicious.

What's the current theories? I'm putting a few dollars on some variation of After the End, myself.

My theory is far future, colony world. They got to a substantially less than ideal world and for whatever reason couldn't voyage elsewhere so they build the spires as homes. Millennia later the truth has been essentially forgotten. The 'vats' are nano scale 3d printers...

Very distant future Earth long after a war with aliens/A.I.s run amok/alien A.I.s that rendered most of the planet uninhabitable. The Spires grew from the last redoubts of humanity.

Given that Cavendish says she wants to drag them out of Heaven, I wonder if the Builders are still around and in space.

My current theory is:

• Long ago, a apocalyptic war shredded the planet. There were two sides. The Enemy's and the Builders.
• The Spires were the Builders Tower-cities and later bunkers as the war made the surface more and more uninhabitable
• It ended in a Mutual Destruction. The Enemy was driven onto the surface/under it, The Builders into space.
• Unaffiliated Humans found the Spires as safe space and made them their own.
• The Builders possibly intended that, even if they had to get off the planet. The humans got the Manual for the Spires after all.
• Neither the Enemy nor the Builders can actively act in the World to some point.
• The Wayists act as the Builders agents to help the remaining Humans/Conserve knowledge.
• The Enemy took Cavendish as his agent to...change the situation at last.

edited 24th Sep '16 4:06:50 PM by 3of4

Sounds fairly plausible.

Oh hey remember this eight year old thread? Anyway the second book came out.

Nice. Hope it was worth the wait.

Now if only I could remember literally anything about the first book's plot...

I liked it quite a bit. There´s also the novella Warriorborn, which takes place immediatly prior to the book. I would suggest to read it before the Olympian Affair.

Also something interesting which isn´t really a spoiler (as in it doesn´t impact the characters or the plot) based on a map provided the setting is not in europe, but in north america. Spire Albion is Albany, NY, Spire Aurora is Aurora Illinois, Spire Atlantea is Atlanta, GA, Spire Olympia is Olympia, Kentucky.

I'm gonna have to pick this one up, I enjoyed the first one decently well.

I'm having a bit of a rough time getting back into it. I wonder if my tastes have shifted.

The inciting event is intriguing, though, and I do want to know more about what's going on beneath the clouds...

I just want more cats being cats.

Man, I'm approaching halfway through this, and... well maybe it's because I've only really been reading the rather sexless Brandon Sanderson these last few years, but this book is super horny. Damn near everyone is getting some.

While I enjoyed the book it took me a while to get into the swing of things too. For me this was mostly because my preferred pairings (not in a shipping sense) had been split up since the last book. We don't have Bridget as a counterpoint for Folly or Creedy to make Grimm look less straightlaced. The viewpoints have less interplay and that took some getting used too.

In the crazy theories zone I'm going to guess that the Enemy is an instantiation of the Vord from Codex Alera (We have word of Jim that they're a multi-planetary terraforming agent) and that the Archangel is the Protoss equivalent that Butcher has eluded to at conventions.

Edited by Aridol on Dec 1st 2023 at 9:47:13 AM