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A review by frasersimons
Behind Blue Eyes by Anna Mocikat
In 2095 we follow a cyborg named Nephilim, groomed from birth to be a hunter-killer for a mega corporation. They’ve colonized her body, indoctrinated her with company thinking and ideology, and inducted her their puritanical angelic hierarchy. Things take a turn when she goes on a mission and kills two guardians, possibly mothers, of a small community of people off-grid. When the kids look at her like she’s a monster, she starts having doubts. And in the company, doubts can, and often do, get you killed.
I had to put this aside at 16% in unfortunately. I didn’t feel like there was any work done in the setup to cause this cascade failure of her ideology. It’s alluded to that many of the missions are run. This isn’t her first time. The kids don’t confront her at all. What, specifically, is haunting her? It feels like it’s taken for granted but it was hard to follow. The commercial fiction, cinematic style prose make it clear that I think that is a perfunctory point, yet I couldn’t see my way through and it’s the crux of the story. The author was a script writer and writer for video games, I believe, and that makes sense here.
This is going for a cinematic, campy vibe similar to anime in tone and affectations and plot beats. I think it’s doing that well, it’s just not to my taste, so I didn’t feel rating it was appropriate as I don’t think I was able to actually accept it and engage with it in the spirit in which it was written. Perhaps another time.
I had to put this aside at 16% in unfortunately. I didn’t feel like there was any work done in the setup to cause this cascade failure of her ideology. It’s alluded to that many of the missions are run. This isn’t her first time. The kids don’t confront her at all. What, specifically, is haunting her? It feels like it’s taken for granted but it was hard to follow. The commercial fiction, cinematic style prose make it clear that I think that is a perfunctory point, yet I couldn’t see my way through and it’s the crux of the story. The author was a script writer and writer for video games, I believe, and that makes sense here.
This is going for a cinematic, campy vibe similar to anime in tone and affectations and plot beats. I think it’s doing that well, it’s just not to my taste, so I didn’t feel rating it was appropriate as I don’t think I was able to actually accept it and engage with it in the spirit in which it was written. Perhaps another time.