#the betrayal novel is essential to get a better understanding of legacy

[pantherpilz]

I'm convinced Tron would've fought Clu right there, had Flynn not interrupted.

[shadowtongued]

long headcanon about the duality of love and the mahjarrat condition pertaining to it from his point of view. if you read all this babble i swear to god, i love you, i hope you have a good day. cw: sex addiction, child neglect, unhealthy coping, unrequited pains. reason for writing: hi i want to die bc of angst.

i think we all know even without playing medieval xp grind lore game, runescape, that sliske is old. very old. he tells us in endgame there's not much he hasn’t done with his life over thousands of years, even traveling to other planets and realms to just see what was out there and how far he could get. i’ve always projected his age as somewhere between more than 8,000 or even more than 10,000. we’re never given a timeline to how long the children of mah have lived. sliske has done a lot with his time; he’s killed a god, had quite a few elder relics in his grasp, SPOKEN to a elder god and managed not to die, mastered shadow magicks, has an excellent grasp on the shadow realm. he’s good with biology, chemistry, has a fair understanding of soul magic which is kind of a rare brand of knowledge, he’s tricked probably thousands into bad contracts to become wights in his army, understands the psychology and bad morals of people. he was a playwright, a high ranking officer, a spymaster. dude is just a determined polymath. you know what he hasn’t done? love. he’s never got to play with love.

mahjarrat are explained as having emotions, but dulled ones. they feel rage and pride apparently better than others. kharshai said after years of really believing he was a human, that when he came back to his true form he states “i  feel raw power coursing through my veins. i don't feel pain like i used to, and i'm sure my intellect has increased. but somehow there is something missing. a capacity for emotion that i can't quite put my finger on.” they aren’t equipped for the same range of positive emotions as others are. they feel it, but they don’t understand it fully, it has been said by developers. this whole bit is sadly funny considering in canon, sliske catches feelings. he doesn’t realize he’s attracted to the player character. it’s stated many times, in his journals, in dialogue, etc. he believes their fates are tangled no matter what. and the saddest bit is he probably doesn’t understand these feelings and it confuses him to the point of anger.  “ love! a mahjarrat in love? ... i almost wish that were true. it would certainly make the universe a more interesting place. ” “ so perhaps i have loved you. but that doesn’t mean i have to like you.”  sliske’s main goal started off as to take the players immortal, unable to be crushed by the divine, soul and give it to himself so he could live forever, as mahjarrats do not have afterlives, once they die they are done, evaporated into energy. but in endgame we learn something from him hidden in masks that refutes that;

“I love you for more than your soul.”

you STUPID fucker, you’re in love.

the remainder of this is a lot of NON-CANON, personal headcanon interpretation that pretty much only works on this blog. as a rough summary: sliske’s ol’ mum was not fond of her kids, half-brother wahisietel or sliske since she did not see them as powerful as herself and was disappointed that's what her legacy came out to. a short, beefy, average at magic son, she had another go and was still disappointed with this spidery, scrawny, gifted but absolutely annoying stick underweight child. his father, saw him once or twice in his life and that was it. dyeosuthua wanted nothing more than to make them disappear and try again until she got offspring she didn’t want to throw into a lava pit in secrecy, infanticide was against tribal law due to population issues. sliske’s mother’s neglect was so severe, ( by the absolute boundless joys of rp development and mutual heacanons ♥ ) that wahi and nabor had an attempt at raising him and keeping him from freezing to death. why is all this jargon important? because while all mahjarrats are raised by tough love, sliske’s attention deprivation from his mother was so severe, he grew up and still has a slew of reactive attachment, psychological, and social issues he still carries as an adult. several times she threatened to kill him and almost made good on it more than twice. when wahisietel had proven he was a survivor of the first ritual of rejuvenation, sliske became dyeosuthua’s  main target for abuse despite his gift for magic at a young age. nothing he did could impress her enough. and it left him constantly seeking approval and validation to an insecure mind.

the more he grew, the more confident he became mainly out of spite and to get attention. he’s loud, charming, makes you the only person in the room when he talks to you. he has an innate silver-tongued ability that persuades people to do just about anything. it was a front for his insecurities that he kept very very closed up. in the second age/senntisten capital, sliske had a pretty severe sex addiction as it was one of the few ways he felt validated and was able to get affection in a way he could digest. people with reactive attachment disorders often have sex addictions to fill the space of acceptance without having to commit.. easy, feel good intimacy without having to open up and let someone learn about your vulnerabilities and commit. it was pretty severe, considering mahjarrats find any kind of breeding or intimacies outside their ‘superior species’ as downright foul. sliske had always been the black sheep of the tribe and with his status as praefectus praetorio; head of secret police, really nothing put a damper on him trying to fill the void for affection he had. there wasn’t a species or individual he wouldn’t bed. he would easily take up propositions even for people who just wanted to fuck a mahjarrat because it was ‘exotic’ or because of his status as an officer, he now looks back on this and it bruises his insecurities even more that he allowed himself to do that. not out of pride for his species. but himself, being just a thing to be had because of rarity. azzanadra and his brother, wahisietel found out about it and while disgusted, partially understood what he was doing to negatively self soothe. at one point sliske and azzanadra, the champion of their god and head of the church, as well of one of the strongest living of their kin, had a lasting tryst for a few years and for awhile it made sliske feel very much self important in a way and alleviated his need to be needed so badly, this did not end well when sliske grew tired of their empire and wanted freedom. once childhood best friends and lovers had become absolute enemies once sliske became too unstable and azzanadra became too zealous. 

sliske gave up his sexcapades for a long time, thousands of years, his libido dropped when he became interested in other projects and self healing when he was hit with the idea that he hasd essentially allowed himself to be an exotic fling and still burned over becoming his god, zaros, scapegoat after all he had done for him. love was a weird concept to him and still is. despite being adamant love doesn’t exist for his kind, and his belief that he is flawed, unstable, and embraced the idea of ‘you want a monster? fine! i’ll be the monster!’. he expects no pity, not be forgiven to things he has done and even in game when you sycophantically try to cozy to him, he straight up calls out your text choice was awful considering some of the shitty things he might have done to you. to sliske, all attention to him is attention, whether you’re praising or insulting him. he’s on your mind, he exists, that’s all he wants.

backstory aside the real part of this headcanon is that sliske actually wants love. it’s the only thing aside from an immortal soul he hasn’t had. sliske actually has an attraction to humans because they are empathetic, curious, passionate, and determined. he has an easier time assimilating and being around them since he has ALWAYS had a better sense of humor, socializing, and happiness than his kin. he feels emotions a lot stronger than his fellow mahjarrats. it allows him to talk to and connect to humans and humanlike species better. others of his kind have told him there’s “something wrong” with him for that. he’s actually a romantic, even if he’s just mimicking romance stories, movies, and actions from others. he thinks the idea of settling with one person and loving them is both mortifying and interesting. opening yourself up to someone and giving them the hammer to smash your cherry-red painted porcelain heart and seeing if they do, to him might be the ultimate form of trust and biggest gamble of russian roulette. the stakes are so heavy he’s high on the idea. but it’s also horrifying. mahjarrat are prolific for not opening up, not allowing others in, vulnerability out in the open is a death sentence. they live in a kratocracy/meritocracy where they kill off the weakest link. it’s not pretty. being soft is a useless, unnecessary, weak gene to them. it dampers survival. 

but yet sliske keeps reading romance novels, writing his own confused poetry, and getting into unrequited one sided loves but practicing a backstabbing betrayal when one gets too close. i have to hurt them before they hurt me, betray and cut them down before they can do it to me. i think he wants to be loved. i think he kinda wants to be taught to love, for the emotions and the sake of knowledge. ( brb james newton howard’s ‘true love’s kiss’ from maleficent just came on spotify and i think i’m going to die bc i did not ask for background music thanks!!! ) he wouldn’t be the best at it, maybe a little too possessive with you, codependent, but very nurturing and fun loving. will sepnd a whole week spooning you.. people who hurt you past, present, and future may end up dead in mysterious ways or turned into a wight for you to beat the shit out of. but he’d try. he’s still got a broken child sitting behind his third rib. i think he would snarl the first few times someone genuinely got close to him, it would terrify him, being known on such a skinned, raw level. having gentle touches that are real and not a come hither to the bedroom. being known for something other than the confident, ego he has is death. he could be taught to be gentle for a crumb of consistent attention. might even cut down the murders and god killing down by 15%. love is not going to fix him, it’s not going to forgive the actual shitty things he’s done. it should never do that. but it will turn the lights on in a dark house.

love could really break him. i think so. i’d type more but this has gone on too long and i feel sad-happies. 

[oumakokichi]

I hope it's not a bother but- Mind telling us why Byakuya Togami got so high in you DR ranking ? I like this character a lot, so I would be interested in what you think of him, as I love your metas and writing so much!

It’s absolutely not a bother! I don’t think I’ve ever had achance to write much about Togami before, so this should be fun.

I would honestly consider Togami one of the DR characterswho has grown the most over the course of the entire series. His arc ofcharacter development is consistent while remaining believable, and I honestlyfind myself enjoying all the new content that’s been provided on him—even hisscenes in dr3, while short, were enjoyable, and I’m incredibly interested inkeeping up with the DR: Togami novels and finding out more about the Togamifamily in general.

Honestly, it was a surprise when I first realized just howhighly I would rank Togami’s character. I hadn’t really thought of him as oneof my favorite characters before—certainly, I didn’t think he would be when Istarted dr1. He’s rude, blunt, absolutely merciless towards others’ feelings,and it didn’t seem like the narrative would be able to pull off him achievingany development or growth without it feeling stiff and unrealistic. However…really, he just grew on me at some point.

I like the fact that the narrative isn’t afraid to callTogami out on his bullshit. When he crosses the line in Chapter 4, he nearlypays the price for it. His complete dismissal of people’s feelings andattachments to others as completely untrustworthy and not even worth his timenearly gets him killed, and this fact honestly shakes him to the core.

Togami is someone who was raised to compete in death games. Not in the sense of a literalkilling game, but yes in the sense of being forced to compete from a young agewith his siblings for which one among them would become the prodigy and heir tothe entire Togami family. Losing out in those competitions meant essentiallythe same as death: Togami had to be prepared for the possibility of himself orany one of his siblings getting removed entirely from the family register andcut off as if they had never existed in the first place.

This kind of do-or-die, kill-or-be-killed mindset wasengrained in him almost from birth. It’s the most important reason why he viewseverything in the killing game as a zero-sum game, and why he refuses to trustor rely on absolutely anyone around him—again, until Chapter 4, when thismindset by which he has abided almost all his life is the very thing thatalmost gets him killed. Realizing just how close he came to dying and how badlyhe messed up all because he was unable to adapt and take emotions and affectioninto account, he’s forced to change his viewpoint and make some improvements tohis behavior, because otherwise he wouldget himself killed for real.

He’s not someone who’s accustomed to the idea that hisviewpoint—particularly a viewpoint that has essentially been keeping him alivein a highly competitive, cutthroat world of competition and betrayal andsuspicion amongst his siblings—could possibly be wrong, but dr1 Chapter 4 was ahuge wake-up call for him. He adjusts, he acknowledges his fault, he even apologizes (albeit, crudely, in thetypical Togami fashion). And he does, incredibly enough, improve. From Chapter5 and onward, it’s impossible to deny that Togami becomes a real team player,acknowledging how other people’s emotions and thoughts might influence them indifferent ways than himself while still remaining believably aloof,self-assured, and calculating.

One of the things I like best about Togami and even aboutdr1 in general as well is that Togami’s comments about suspecting and doubtingothers in the group are not entirely wrong.Like Ouma, Togami is someone who absolutely knows that blind optimism andnaivete will only get you killed in a life-or-death situation like a killinggame. He refuses to hold hands and believe in the power of friendship withoutfirst getting to know the people around him—and the problem is, he can’t bringhimself to actually get to know them until much later, around Chapter 5 or so,because of how much paranoia the killing game inspires.

Whereas Ouma’s viewpoint is never quite acknowledged by anyof the other characters as being correct or having a valid point (except, occasionally,by Kiibo, but usually the other characters just sort of go “haha, look at the poorrobot, he doesn’t understand social cues” and don’t pay him any attention),Togami’s viewpoint is validated by Kirigiri, of all characters.

Kirigiri understands better than any other character in dr1,arguably better than any character in the entire DR franchise, that you can’tafford to take blind optimism or complete and utter paranoia to either extreme.She has a line as early as Chapter 1 of dr1 about how trusting people tooblindly and implicitly is just as dangerous as doubting anyone and everything.Having one of the most level-headed, intelligent, and perceptive characters inthe cast acknowledge that Togami’s not simply saying everything for the sake ofbeing an antagonistic asshole lends his words a certain degree of credibilityto the other characters and to the players as well.

I’m honestly impressed with the way Togami has matured as aperson. Actions speak louder than words, and his actions ever since the laterchapters of dr1 have consistently shown time and time again that he really doesregard the rest of the survivors as friends. In dr3, the characters mostresponsible for helping to save everyone at the end are Juzo, Kirigiri—and Togami,without whom none of the characters would have discovered that the killing gamewasn’t actually being broadcast, and who acted quickly enough to send help to theFuture Foundation and to Jabberwock Island.

Togami is someone who simultaneously makes valid pointsabout the necessity of doubt, suspicion, and self-preservation in a killinggame, while also never getting a free pass from the narrative. Asahina,Kirigiri, and even Naegi are all more than willing to let him know when he’scrossed a line. When shown concrete proof of the fact that his viewpoint wasnot only mistaken but also dangerously intolerant of other people’s feelings,he genuinely does change for the better.

He’s developed from a relatively closed-off, arrogant, cynicalteenager into someone who, while still certainly more dubious than some of hisfellow survivors, is willing to pitch in and do what he can to make sure they all stay alive. While he’s not quite asbrilliant as Kirigiri, he’s still fairly smart in his own right, and hisresources and considerable abilities to dedicate himself to a task make him anasset to the dr1 survivor group.

What people tend to forget often about Togami is that whilehis family is certainly his backbone, he prides himself more than anything onhis own personal achievements. He is the reason his family should be a proudand upstanding name, not the other way around. From his own perspective, he earned his position as the Togami familyheir—went through hell for it, in fact. He’s capable and determined in his ownright, and that’s why even the discovery of the Togami family’s downfall isn’tenough to shake him. The Togami family fell, but that does nothing to sway hisdetermination to rebuild it and make it even better than its former glory. Inthat sense, he reminds me quite a lot of Kyouya Ootori from Ouran, who was verysimilar in wanting to actually outshine the legacy of his family.

Anyway, these are most of the reasons why I find myselfliking Togami. It’s true that other characters are perhaps more fun or moreinteresting—but he’s gone very high on my personal ranking just because of thesheer amount of development he’s had. I’m at the point where I enjoy seeing himin just about any DR spinoff at all nowadays, and I’m pleased that he stillfeels like himself while having changed and improved his behavior so much.

I hope I expressed myself well enough! I’m really glad thatyou enjoy Togami too, anon! Thank you for giving me a chance to write a littlebit about him!

[preserving-ferretbrain]

23 boxes of tissues on the Jellicoe Road

by Wardog

Thursday, 05 February 2009Wardog tops off her run of utterly amazing books with On the Jellicoe Road.~

My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die. I counted. It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I'd ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, "What's the difference between a trip and a journey?" and my father said, "Narnie, my love, when we get there, you'll understand," and that was the last thing he ever said.

Are you in tears, yet? On the Jellicoe Road (or Jellicoe Road, as it was published over here, for some inexplicable reason) is an incredible book, a perfectly judged juxtaposition of beauty and pain, like the Jellicoe road itself introduced here in the prologue. I'm probably failing to sell this from the get go book: On the Jellico Road is not an easy book - in fact, sometimes, it's almost unbearable - but it's also superb in every conceivable way, and so full of hope and wonder that if I believed in books could change lives, this would be one of those books. It's a buy and give to everyone you know sort of book.

On the Jellicoe Road is a complex book, with complex characters and you'll spend at least the first hundred pages faintly bewildered because it just throws you straight into the action of the story, but it's incredibly carefully structured and comes together in remarkably coherent and satisfying way. Everything that happens, everything it tells you, is there for a reason. There are two storylines, one set in the past and one in the present; they seem to run in parallel but, as the book unfolds, they turn out to be intimately connected. The Past tells the story of five teenagers who were brought together in tragedy on the Jellicoe Road. In the present, we have Taylor Markham, a teenage girl who was abandoned at 7/11 by her mother on the Jellicoe Road. She becomes the reluctant leader of her school in the annual territory wars between the Jellicoe school students, the Townies and the Cadets, who come in for six weeks from the city, but she's really searching for family she's lost and a sense of belonging in a world she thinks is "just a tad low on the reliable adult quota."

I've deliberately kept my attempt at a plot summary sparse: there is no way I can do such an intricate book justice in a summary and a large part of the pleasure of reading it comes from piecing the past and the present together, and learning how the one informs and influences the other. The sections of the novel set in the present are told in the first person from Taylor's point of view; the past comes to us in fragments from the novel written by Hannah, the woman who has acted somewhat as a surrogate parent for Taylor. I can't say simply what On the Jellicoe Road is about: it's about love, I think, love and pain, and hope, and how to find it. I'm not a sentimental person, and it's not in any way a sentimental book, but I cried all the way through it. I'm kind of welling up a bit writing this review, and remembering. The thing is, because I am not the sort of person who cries at things, I usually get quite angry by books that try to make me. I feel resentful and manipulated: although it is impossible to read On the Jellicoe Road without being moved, the emotion it never fails to evoke feels natural and cathartic.

There isn't much more to say about On the Jellicoe Road without starting to pick it apart in order to look at why it's so wonderful. But it's a sublime butterfly of a book and I have no wish to stick a pin through its heart. I simply can't remember the last time I was so profoundly affected by something in fiction. It's quite a slow-paced read and far from easy but it's undoubtedly worth it. It's such a powerful story, beautifully written, elegantly structured and full of flawed, complex well-drawn characters. And although it's full of grief and pain and despair, the darkness is never absolute: hope and love are always there when you are sure they can't possibly be. And, if you can possibly believe it, it's far from a grueling emotion-fest. It's also extremely funny (Taylor, for example, has a dry, sarcastic narrative voice that suits her difficult, lonely character perfectly) and there's plenty of adolescent bickering and flirting and relating to keep the book grounded. On the Jellicoe Road is quite simply an essential read. It makes me want to have children so I could give them copy when they got to be teenagers. Even though I hate children. It's that good.Themes:

Young Adult / Children

~

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Isabel

at 09:42 on 2009-05-23Kyra thanks SO much for writing this review. Just finished it (was anal enough to get my cousin in Australia to buy and post me a copy because I don't like UK edition) and would never of heard of it if you hadn't written this. Fucking LOVE this book. It's just amazing.

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Wardog

at 10:51 on 2009-05-23Thank you so much - I'm glad somebody else has read it because it's such an amazing book. And I have no idea what they were thinking of with the UK cover (big red poppy of pointlessness??).

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Isabel

at 19:04 on 2009-05-25And especially renaming it Jellicoe Road – that really irked me!

I think what I really loved was the way that everything in it was there for a reason and also because the big points or important sentences and moments didn’t stick in my mind because they were obviously This Is Significant (something which after five seasons of Lost is really. Pissing. Me. Off.) but just because they were the most beautiful – opening paragraph and the ‘more’ stuff being the case in point.

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Guy

at 06:59 on 2009-07-29Hey Kyra, just wanted to add my thanks to Isabel's because I just finished reading this book and it was amazing. If you hadn't written this review I never would have given this book a second glance because I would have (shamefully) misjudged it on the basis of having seen the film of Alibrandi and sort-of liked it and thought that was all I needed to know about Melina Marchetta. I'm half-tempted to write a review of this book in which I ramble endlessly about the hundred and one things that it makes me think of, but I guess the succinct thing I'd say about it is that it's the kind of book that I remember reading that made me Believe In Literature when I was younger and that's an experience I've missed for a long long time.

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Robinson L

at 20:30 on 2009-09-09Oh my god.

Oh my

god

.

(I promised myself I'd restrict this comment to just the one repetition.)

By great good fortune, my library system has this on Playaway (a sort of combination audiobook and player, just add headphones) and I just happened to stumble across it when browsing the online catalogue (I'm pretty sure I didn't go out looking for it).

I listened to it over the summer and was completely blown away. Easily one of the best books I've read in years. Maybe

the

best.

This story is so incredibly beautiful. Tragedy and I have been on difficult terms for a long time, and once or twice I've considered issuing a restraining order. This summer it feels like I've been saturated with more angsty melodrama than at any time since I gave up

Legacy of the Force

in disgust. (At some point when I've got my thoughts better collected I'll have to write a post about the peculiar penchant in the entertainment industry to assume more angst = more literate.) Then again, that may've mostly been due to the third and fourth seasons of

Battlestar Galactica

, a show which must've been pitched like this: “We've got to show the Brits we can produce something even

more

angsty than their new version of

Doctor Who

.” (Ooh, look at all the pretty tangents.)

'Course, some of the tragedy was better than that. I listened to both Jodi Picoult's

My Sister's Keeper

and Audrey Niffenegger's

The Time-Traveler's

(which, incidentally, also had a major character die in a car crash and accidentally shot by a loved one, respectively) this spring and they were all right, but even they felt somewhat forced and melodramatic.

On the Jellicoe Road

singlehandedly restored my faith in tragedy, and reminded me that yes, it can be an intensely beautiful thing. (Anybody else here think tragedy is a lot harder to pull off satisfactorily than happy stories?)

Which is not to say, I hasten to add for the benefit of anyone who hasn't yet read the book, that it's all tragedy. The ending is bittersweet: tragedy and joy blended to perfection and served in a porcelain bowl with luscious fudge topping.

It's hard enough to get my eyes to tear up, but I was crying all through the last three chapters. The epilogue was such a downer note that I just kept on listening and got the prologue and first nine chapters all over again. (Approximately one million things leaped out at me and had me going “Oh, so

that's

what that part's about. Another sign of excellent writing.)

And though it's sad, the story is also uplifting. I think this is because at the end of the road, despite all of the pain, all of the heartache, all of the betrayals and perceived betrayals, everyone is forgiven, everyone is loved. I'm tearing up again just writing that.

In terms of plotting, the book is effing fantastic. To borrow a line from Kyra's

“Incarceron” review

:

Read it and weep, JK Rowling, this what a backstory should be.

(Also what tragedy should be.)

Even the serial killer plot thread managed to tie into the whole in the most perfectly unexpected way. *David Tennant voice* Brilliant.

I attended a Young Adult Fiction panel at a Convention this weekend, and at one point realized they were having recommendations from the audience. I gave this book a special shout-out (and Catherine Fisher, too).

Unfortunately, my youngest sisters are too young to read this—I just know it would break their hearts—and the older one has already expressed her disinclination to let me tell her how much

I

loved the book, let alone recommend it to her (which I wasn't going to do anyway, because teenager though she is, I suspect she'd find it overwhelmingly sad as well).

My version had the red poppy too, but it's so abstract I didn't mind, because the Australian cover looks like some kind of ghost story of only middling quality to me. As for the title—I got both versions. The US cover has the truncated title, but the dramatization is Australian and the reader gave it in full.

May I also just give a shout-out to the audio version, by the way? Narration can primarily enhance a story experience, detract from it, or execute it neutrally (I say “primarily” because most have at least a little of each). Rebecca Macauley's reading of

On the Jellicoe Road

lands squarely in the first category. Her Taylor is flawless, and the other voices are good-to-amazing. With her narration, she brings the rich emotions of the book to life.

(Although due to only listening to the book, I was momentarily thrown off rereading this post to learn that Webb's sister is called “Narnie” rather than “Nani.”)

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Wardog

at 12:58 on 2009-09-10I am increasingly pleased I wrote this review - the book had such an impact on me that I'm glad other people reading it as a consquence.

I'm so glad it effected you as strongly as it did me - it's a truly remarkable and wonderful book. I did cry pretty much the whole way through it but I never resented the fact it made me do that, nor did I find it was unpleasant, the way strong emotions can sometimes be.

It's such a hard book to recommend to people because it is such an emotional read.

But, God, yes it's remarkable - and you for commenting, I really think everyone should read this book.

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Robinson L

at 22:02 on 2009-09-10Thank

you

for reviewing it, and putting me on to such a fabulous thing.

(Yes, it is a hard book to recommend, although I seem to be getting the unshakable urge to proselytize it now.)

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Jamie Johnston

at 19:59 on 2017-07-13This review has really stuck in my mind for all these years, so much so that I've come to remember it as possibly the first thing I ever read on Ferretbrain – which is clearly wrong because I'd been not only reading but contributing to the site for over a year before the review was posted. I also remembered 'On the Jellicoe Road' as being the first book I put on my 'to read' list when I got a Goodreads account (over two years after reading this review) and that memory does turn out to be right.

And after all that, I recently got round to actually tracking down a copy and reading it! No need to say any more than that I completely agree with everything you said about it, Kyra, and thank you for the recommendation.