Zana’s Reviews > The Iron Garden Sutra > Status Update

There's going to be a sequel? But this felt self-contained enough

“They’re engineers. They’re barely human.”

👁️👄👁️

I wasn't feeling this budding romance at first but putting them in a life or death situation is making me change my mind 🤔

“...Some of Eli’s blood pushed past his lips, and the metallic taste of it sent Iris’s empty stomach into a spasm.”

🤢

‘“Well, perhaps the Nicaea is learning how to communicate with us. Think about it: The language of her passengers would be outdated, and we wouldn’t be able to understand her mother tongue.”

“So, the ship is learning the language by listening to us?”

Iris prayed for Yan to take this leap of faith with him. “No, the ship is learning it from absorbing us into itself.”’

Bruh 👁️👄👁️

“...In his younger days, Iris would frequently forget that it was VIFAI who spoke to him and not a rogue thought of his own. Through the years, their mannerisms diverged, as did their voices, and Iris learned to identify the other who was sharing in his mind. He could no longer remember what it had been like to be alone.”

This is creepy af

“It wasn’t death that bothered Iris, it was the dying. How soon would his own last breath fill a silent room with parting rasps ? How soon would he too search for useless words that only amounted to more grief and confusion to those remaining? Well, at least he didn’t need to worry about that last part.”

Damn this is depressing

“Yan sounded like the sort of person who, as a jubilant child, cut frogs open to see what made them hop.”

👁️👄👁️

“Iris rarely thought of VIFAI as alive, as sentient, apart from himself. He struggled to remember a time when the electronic voice wasn’t whispering in his ear, when the construct wasn’t a comforting pressure against Iris’s own ego. Yet, VIFAI undeniably was alive and separate. It had a sense of humour. It felt pain, of this Iris was sure...”

AI psychosis

“The ancient bones threatened to turn to dust as Iris ran a hand along them. In their unyielding drive for survival, vines had pried the ribcage open, each individual rib splayed like the great wings of a bird. Brilliant, purple flowers sprouted from the wide-open mouth—the wisteria had wrapped itself around the spine and pushed its way through the eye sockets....”

Gothic + sci-fi?