Papa Rodin Reads #4 - "Final Draft" by Sergej Lukianenko
Greetings, Steemians and Steemettes!
Back from the butcher. As expected, I was actually super livid when I left the place. I had an appointment which did not stop them from keeping me waiting for 45 minutes before they finally called for me. They asked me to enter a different room where I was allowed to wait for another 15 minutes.
When the butcher finally came in, he took a look at my wound, was satisfied with his work, told me that he had no waterproof patches and was gone again. Took a minute.
And I had to buy the goddamn patches myself! God I hate the entire medical sector!
50 Greyshades of Rodin
Final Draft
Oh yeah, I my mistake. This was supposed to be a book review, not me mumbling and bumbling about this......alright, alright, no more digressing.
Final Draft is the sequel to the book Rough Draft that I talked about in this post. In that post, I only touched upon the first 100 or so pages. After having everyone he ever known and loved losing memory about him, our protagonist Kirill got himself into quite the bizarre adventure. What could be more bizarre than basically being erased from life as you knew it itself?
Well, I could tell you, but that would be telling.
But I will tell you anyway.
In summary:
- Kirill got a new job. Not the one he expected, not the one he was applying for, but he did enjoy the percs that came with it.
- Until he noticed that every coin has two sides and one side can end up being much less shiny and beautiful to look at than the front.
- Throw in some good old large scale conspiracies and betrayal and a protagonist surpassing his own comprehension.
There, we got ourselves a story, Now you know how the Rough Draft went on without knowing it.
Or, should I say that you now have a rough draft about the "Rough Draft"?
Alright, I see myself out.
The Final Draft. For real this time.
Let me describe you how Kirill feels during the transition between these two books. Imagine having everyone you know and love having forgotten about you because of external influence. Imagine finding out that our very world is basically nothing but a simulation to see how certain social and governmental things would work out as a prototype before another world, a core world, applies these to itself. And imagine that your fancy old job was just part of that business, And, for good measure, imagine that your best friend, your pal, your drinking body, was part of it all along and lied to you since basically ever.
That is the situation Kirill finds himself in. Throw in a killed love interest as well and we have ourselves a good old revenge story. But this revenge story plays out a bit differently because nobody has any idea who is actually to blame for all this.
The best friend? He is actually just a cog in the machine as well and ends up wanting to support you anyway. And you believe it. The people who put you in your jobs? Those as well.
The story of the Final Draft is Kirills journey through many worlds, through different kinds of governmental and existential concepts in order to finding information and support against whoever actually is at fault.
Governmental and existential concepts?
Oh yeah, big time. I told earlier that there exists a core world, right? And I also said that this core world uses our world as a prototype for certain social aspects. Well, I was actually leaving some parts out here.
- Said core world isn't the actual core world. It just likes to think that it is.
- There exist countless different parallel earths with all sorts differences.
The very first new world Kirill gets to know is a place called "Veros". An interesting version of our earth where oil never was a thing and governmental bodies the way we know them don't exist. Instead, everything the people of Veros have is based on steem engines, which they have developed to the maximum efficiency. In terms of government, Veros only has a lot of city-states. It seems to work out for them. They also have a remarkable voting system . It gives more vote to people who know how to earn money and who give the state access to said money by depositing it. On this world, this is a openly known and acknowledged way of handling things. The reasoning is that someone who has his life and his priorities in check and is willing to accept some shortcomings in life in order to take part in forming the state for the better should have more voting power than someone who lives in a corner being a drunk.
Sounds rough, but this actually made me rethink whether or not equality is always a thing to thrive for.
Talking about votes
Of course, our earth has a certain name and reputation to itself. It is called "Demos" in the multiverse. Known for it's technological advances, our earth is quite well known among others and a favorite of many. Why is it called "Demos" you ask? Because we do love our democracy, no matter how faulty or corrupt it may be.
I do like a certain nag for subtlety, but sometimes, being blunt about things has its own charme, doesn't it?
There are some other worlds that do not support human life all that well, like ice-wastes, volcanic worlds and the likes. Another world that I like to mention is known for the air containing a constant amount of hallucinogenics, making the people living there basically drugged all the time. A good place to leave dangerous people and forget about them. Let us not talk about the governmental system there.
There is one last world with a fascinating governmental system that took me by surprise. A world called "Feste" that shut itself out from other worlds to the best of it's ability. A world were religion is being held in very high regard, but they are still free and open to different kinds of approaches and thoughts. Even to other religions.
This world is basically the opposite of our good old demos. They basically never made any technological advancements whatsoever. Instead, somehow, they became masters of bio mechanics. According to their weird form of religious believes, humans are created in gods image and are thus without flaw. The same isn't true for animals which were made to be off service to us, so tinkering with these is okay. And they did, with a lot of success. We have birds being used as alarm clocks, dogs and bees that are basically weaponized and many more.
My particular favorite was a necklace that was made out of bees that can be thrown into a group of enemies in order to cause havoc. Maybe I shouldn't write this down here, I don't want to give any government strange ideas.
So where does the story lead?
Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. There is no big boss who oversees everything, no core-evil, no one with a god complex who actually has the power and omnipotence and presents to deserve it. Basically, Kirill did this entire journey only to find out that everything that is, everything that happens, everything that never happened, may happen or has happened somewhere else is just a big and huge coincidence.
Kinda anticlimatic, isn't it?
Sergej Lukianenko has these kind of endings quite often. Endings that are different from what Hollywood makes us believe every final confrontation should be. The resolution to the conflicts and obstacles at hand are rarely what we expect them to be, but they always seem to make sense in their own way.
And they make you think.
Think in a way that no regular fantasy story about orcs and elves or a regular sci fi story about just traveling the galaxy whipping blasters and exploring planets would.
Kirills resolution made sense for him. He found himself with two possible options and created a third one that he hopefully will end up being able to live with. There is no third book and I doubt that there will be one coming out anytime soon, so we might never no for sure. I do hope it, though, because he sure had his fair share.
Read these books. They are worth your time.
If I had any idea how to handle it, I would add amazon affiliate links to them because I am so convinced about them being good literature. Maybe I will investigate on how to do that one day.
Until that happens though, I will leave you for now. My wound starts aching and I can't write good things when the face of a certain butcher keeps flashing in front of my eyes.
Good post @paparodin
I know, right? Mighty proud of myself I am.
Actually, I think some of my other posts have been way better than this one.