Dumbattitude’s review of God in the Machine > Likes and Comments

Hey! I know authors don't usually respond to reviews but you're lucky in this case because I'm such a small author and also because I appreciate SO MUCH that you've taken the time to write such a detailed and thoughtful review of my book - AND preface it with a quote (which is one of my favourites by the way). Thank you so much!

While I'm here I'll answer your questions as well! The Freyja (I'm assuming you remembered her as Aphrodite as Freyja is sort of the Norse equivalent to Aphrodite) thing is actually something that I'm grateful you've asked about because I somehow didn't notice it until now. I think the reason she seems to disappear so suddenly with no mention is because I had to cut a chapter at the very end and that chapter had a paragraph and some dialogue explaining that she joined the battle when Athena showed up at the fortress, and from there became a member of the Resistance. Pretty minor detail as she's a minor character (at least in this book, because yes there is a sequel in the works!) but I am annoyed that I missed that so I might dig up that paragraph and add it back into the book in a post-publication edit. I made some pretty last-minute changes to the end of the book that must have flown under the radar of my editors (who I do not blame as they were doing it for free)

In regards to Daya's vision, there's a line from Liam in chapter 6 which states that "details can change, but the overall picture must remain the same". This was intended to foreshadow the change at the end where Valour and Holly's dialogue is different; the events of the story influenced their conversation, but not what ended up happening to Holly (censoring myself for spoilers!) Daya's visions are something I want to expand more upon in the following books because I know that GITM didn't really have the time to get into their mechanics too much

Also, I totally understand the character development thing. I love them all dearly but it was so hard for me to balance them all whilst also not making the book 700 pages long. So I had to prioritise developing certain characters more over others. Good thing that GITM is the first in a six-book series so I'll have the chance to fully develop everybody in the long run

Once again thank you so much, I hope my comment has answered those questions for you! Also sorry that this doesn't come from an official author account, I could never get my goodreads account verified for some reason

A. J. wrote: "Hey! I know authors don't usually respond to reviews but you're lucky in this case because I'm such a small author and also because I appreciate SO MUCH that you've taken the time to write such a d..."

Omg, thank you so much for your answer and for taking the time to answer my questions!

I can only imagine how hard it can be when editing/changing a bit a story to not miss anything for minor characters such as Freyja, it was honestly more of a curiosity of mine, because I really liked the character, than anything haha, I doesn't change much to the story and it also could have been totally plausible that her whereabouts were left unknown on purpose for the next book or something!

Concerning Daya's vision, it had totally slipped my mind but it makes a lot of sense! I guess this is one of the things that get even better on a reread! I cannot wait to learn more about how the visions work!

As for the character development, it was really more a wish of mine than a critique! I totally get how hard it must be to balance the development of all the characters when there are so many without making the story too long. I really think that the development was good as I got really attached to all of the characters in a short time! I cannot wait to read the following books to get to know more about the different characters!

Thank you again for having taken the time to answer my comment! I cannot wait to read more of your work!