I've never had any experience of being a girl on the brink of her first period, or any other kind of girl if it comes to that. So Phoebe is difficult to write as so much of what is going on inside her head is guessed at. And Phoebe is difficult as she speaks in a teenspeak that hasn't been invented by real teens yet, so she is hard for many people to read. Some of the comments I've had back have identified her as a major headache. Others, mind, have enjoyed her perspective and have liked the idea of the teenspeak. It takes all sorts.
A few commenters didn't like the introduction of Tony Blair (though many have loved the idea of him being in jail).
He's there partly because burning him at the stake would contribute to global warming and because he gives a (subtle, I hope) clue as to the time frame of the story. This can't be the far future, as Blair is still alive, though it must either be the future or a different time line in which history has turned out better than we managed it in this one. Phobe says she found out about him when she was eight and she must be around 12 to be on the verge of a first period.
Her teenspeak is built up of parts that should be recognisable to any reader: tres, tres ok being an example; parts that will only be recognisable to a Japanese speaker: mecha, cho, yada; and parts that I made up as I went along. On the grounds that George Harrison claimed 'grotty' as being derived from 'grotesque', I decided that 'gruse' could easily come from 'grusome'.
It isn't nearly as hard to get your head around as either the teenspeak of Clockwork Orange, or Bascule the Rascal's semi-phonetic writing in Feersum Endjinn, or Ridley Walker's purely phonetic script in the book of the same name. They are all bloody difficult when first encountered, though you do get into them. I reckoned I'd be adding a bit of interest with Phoebe's and still not going so far into the linguistic twilight zones that others have entered.
There's one bit of questionable plotting when Phobe realises that she is Malaika. She knows it and recognises the face. Adam, you'll find out later, doesn't recognise the faces of any of the people he sees, though he knows they must be famous. In my own mind I sort this out by thinking that he is supposed to be new, so the computer has suppressed his memories so as to make the whole experience more 'real' for him. Phoebe couldn't operate on this basis, as Malaika has to know who she is talking to, so the suppression hasn't been performed on her. This is never made much of in the rest of the book, but will be in book two.
Had Phobe been put into the body of a Seeker, her memories of the people would have been similarly suppressed. And so might her memories of the stories. Neither she nor Adam question the fact that she knows what is going on here, so we can guess that no one has told them things will be otherwise. Later, Adam decides that her knowing the plot might be a design feature that would allow anyone coming into the Land to cheat, but it is actually a mistake and the reason why the prologue refers to the moment of her character ID changing as being of so much import.
A few commenters didn't like the introduction of Tony Blair (though many have loved the idea of him being in jail).
He's there partly because burning him at the stake would contribute to global warming and because he gives a (subtle, I hope) clue as to the time frame of the story. This can't be the far future, as Blair is still alive, though it must either be the future or a different time line in which history has turned out better than we managed it in this one. Phobe says she found out about him when she was eight and she must be around 12 to be on the verge of a first period.
Her teenspeak is built up of parts that should be recognisable to any reader: tres, tres ok being an example; parts that will only be recognisable to a Japanese speaker: mecha, cho, yada; and parts that I made up as I went along. On the grounds that George Harrison claimed 'grotty' as being derived from 'grotesque', I decided that 'gruse' could easily come from 'grusome'.
It isn't nearly as hard to get your head around as either the teenspeak of Clockwork Orange, or Bascule the Rascal's semi-phonetic writing in Feersum Endjinn, or Ridley Walker's purely phonetic script in the book of the same name. They are all bloody difficult when first encountered, though you do get into them. I reckoned I'd be adding a bit of interest with Phoebe's and still not going so far into the linguistic twilight zones that others have entered.
There's one bit of questionable plotting when Phobe realises that she is Malaika. She knows it and recognises the face. Adam, you'll find out later, doesn't recognise the faces of any of the people he sees, though he knows they must be famous. In my own mind I sort this out by thinking that he is supposed to be new, so the computer has suppressed his memories so as to make the whole experience more 'real' for him. Phoebe couldn't operate on this basis, as Malaika has to know who she is talking to, so the suppression hasn't been performed on her. This is never made much of in the rest of the book, but will be in book two.
Had Phobe been put into the body of a Seeker, her memories of the people would have been similarly suppressed. And so might her memories of the stories. Neither she nor Adam question the fact that she knows what is going on here, so we can guess that no one has told them things will be otherwise. Later, Adam decides that her knowing the plot might be a design feature that would allow anyone coming into the Land to cheat, but it is actually a mistake and the reason why the prologue refers to the moment of her character ID changing as being of so much import.
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