Looking to the ward side of the wind

Good morning everyone:

There were two parts in the book that I wanted to bring up, and see what other people thought. The first part that really struck me was around page 200 or so, when the process by which Subliming was explored is described by a narrator of some sort. The specific part I refer to is near the bottom of page 200 itself, where sporting events are lumped in with religious sites, and then further delineated with a parenthetical. The fact that the bank of dead Chelgarians would interfere in multiple different ways to the get the attention of the living seems like it could be the case, but I find the methods they use to do so fascinating. I feel as though "personality" isn't the right word for a large electronic bank of amalgamated souls of the deceased, but for the sake of writing here, I find the personality of Chel-Puen to be highlighted here in a way that foreshadows the rest of the plot (except for the very last turnaround, which I didn't see coming). If these/this being(s) interfered and interacted with people at religious sites, in government, to find artifacts, and apparently at sporting events (...) in order to get the people to streamline the process of admitting souls into the Chel-Puen, they probably mean business. In fact, this level of work and preparation they put into making the souls able to enter almost seems to be their own guiding bit of "morality" (as much as such a being can have morality), and this is how it foreshadows the rest of the story. Not really caring who or what they influence, as long as the souls keep coming in.... its almost like Walmart, really (doesn't matter how many mom and pop stores shut down, doesn't matter how poorly they treat their suppliers, as long as they keep profiting).

And, the other part of the book that stood out at me was the speech by the avatar of Hub to Ziller, around page 376 (both before and after that page, as well) - the portion where Hub talks about its role in the massive killing of Idirian civilians during the war. The entire book, I'm picturing this nice computer that watches over everyone and makes everything run smoothly (something like Mike, actually), and then it turns out the computer is like the combination of Rambo and the Terminator, with a bit of housekeeping subroutines programmed in. Thats a fairly noticeable change in perceived character, and I was surprised at the mostly calm reaction of Ziller. And then at the end of the book, it commits suicide and takes Quilian with it, which also surprised me a whole bunch - how many computers commit suicide? I say this acknowledging the fact that this specific bit of AI recorded the deaths of all the people it killed individually, and then studied them all the time, and felt kind of bad, but still - thats some level of programming that implies "this isn't science fiction AI, this is thematic point/a disguised difficult-to-grapple-with question as a computer." I'm curious to hear what other people thought of the Hub.

It has been a pleasure taking this course with all of you; to thee I say Adieu

-Mike