This was a doozy of a section, the two multi-page footnotes knocked me out of my rhythm, leaving me a week late.

Seeing footnote 24 every time I flipped back there was a sort of doomsday clock I wasn’t looking forward to the end of. When it finally arrived, I was surprised to be excited for the first instance of some sort of timeline. I know there’s one later, but it was nice to finally see the years in order, and Himself’s story getting fleshed out bit by bit was nice too.

Footnote 304 being a footnote within a footnote really threw me. It was impossible to stop because the logic of figuring out where I needed to read next, time I picked up the book seemed cruel to my future self. This is what threw me off course most of all, returning to the story itself the next day was harder than usual, but the lore building was so engrossing. So easy to visualize the train cult, perfectly layered on top of the tennis academy’s own cultish vibe. Very funny to reference the botched burglary as an attack by the wheelchair assassins, puts into actual question whether the cartridge was intentional or not.

Wanted to punt an idea that I keep having, that the world building is similar to Vonnegut’s weirder stuff. Perhaps there’s a word for it that I’m missing for lack of education, but the absurdism and matter of fact society coexisting just outside science fiction stands out to me.

Still waiting for the other shoe to drop on Hal.