Neural Wraith 3 - Detailed Commentary

Intro

As always, this is the commentary post for Neural Wraith 3.

This post will include broad commentary on Neural Wraith 3, including many of the editing decisions I made (and didn’t make). As such, it is loaded with massive spoilers. I will try to avoid spoiling any of my other series, however. If you haven’t read the entire book, come back later. This post will be waiting for you. Also, the commentary is fairly long, so feel free to read it in chunks or whatever.

I’ve decided against splitting topics cleanly into “book” and “authorly” topics, but I’ll indicate if a topic is going to be very author-centric in case you want to skip it (or touches on a topic I know some people are very tired of). I’ve decided against going over the first three acts, however, and instead will just talk about various topics directly. You can stop reading once the topics begin to bore to you. If I feel a topic is particularly sensitive, I’m probably going to skip over it without comment.

The Release

[insert rehash of almost every release commentary since Demon’s Throne 3 last year about sales fall-off]

The book has done fine despite the same fall off as previous titles, but I have a Patreon, and audiobooks are doing well enough (although the Neural Wraith 2 fuckup by Audible has hurt it badly). Hence why I’m comfortable enough to take a break and focus on writing, rather than publishing for a little while. There are still stormclouds, but I need to worry about my own writing issues for the time being.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ll need to make hard decisions based on the trend things are going in. In order to keep this post on track, I’ve decided not to talk about the problems again in this post. Instead, I’ll make a separate post about the decisions I expect to make relatively soon. My immediate focus still remains on finishing my current series, however.

Writing the Book

Let’s talk about the absolute train wreck that was getting a book out.

Timing is sometimes the real bitch when it comes to trying to get lots of things done at once. That, and scoping your tasks. I got both wrong.

2023 was meant to be a year where I took things a little easier and attempted to stick to a schedule, but Neural Wraith 2 took longer than expected due to the long break I had followed Spellblade 5. At the same time, I had March off (as in, I wouldn’t be home or able to write at all). Oh, and I needed to move in February.

This put me in a bind. And there were some financial issues. The four month gap between HS5 and NW2 meant I’d seen a drop in income at the same time several authors mysteriously increased their publishing rate in the genre. The NW2 release also did worse in the algo than I had hoped. So if I missed the March window, I’d potentially be waiting until early May, which would hurt a lot.

Also, I knew people wanted more fantasy from me. Lots of people have been asking me when the next Demon’s Throne will be out, for instance.

Me, being the wise man I am, decided to try to get Spellblade 6 out in 2 months as a result. This might have been possible if the book had come together easily and nothing else had distracted me. Neither thing happened.

Because I drastically got the scope wrong. Scope is the term used to describe “how big a piece of work is.” I had to move house in Feb, and that turned out to be far more exhausting than I expected. Quite a few people told me that moving would involve no more than a day of packing and the movers would do all the work for me. This is, to be frank, fucking bullshit, and I think I discovered who did all the work during the moves for those families. Not them.

I also underestimated the amount of work involved in my novels. This is normal for me. First, I forgot how big Spellblade books are. They’re immense, complex, and have a thousand things to track. The series is approaching a million words now, has a big cast of characters with their own arcs, lots of plot threads, and the book will be like 200k words with an ending that I felt that I had to reach.

Then I switched to Neural Wraith and said how easy they are. And, yes, they are easy in one sense. The books are significantly shorter and they don’t involve anywhere near as many complex arcs and nonsense being carried across multiple books. But the flipside is that each book must encapsulate the entire story. Also, because I’m me, each of these books has a somewhat cohesive theme, includes topical stuff that risks pissing people off (and does), and I’m trying to combine a fun mystery with other stuff.

The plus side is that I do enjoy writing these books and they don’t leave me quite as drained and burned out, mostly because they’re not as long. One of the big positives is that I care a lot less about trying to force in stuff that I think is more commercial and just focus on writing a good story. That’s a real risk in this genre, and says a lot about it, but it means I can write this series for a fair while.

The Mystery

I had some fun ideas for the mystery this time around. The book itself was modeled around a standard thriller plot: a terrorist attack at the start, an investigation that chases the patsy who caused it, uncovering the true villain(s), then a big showdown at the end, with an extra scene at the end involving the actual suspect. In thrillers, you often don’t have any clue who the villain might be until the very end and twists are rarely hinted at, but I needed to signpost stuff.

So that meant I had the basics of the plot more or less set in stone: the Shudder in chapter 1; evidence that leads Nick to Vic (and Aesir) around the end of Act 1; capture Vic at the midpoint, only to learn that Aesir isn’t strictly involved; the CIA send a message to Nick in Act; then the meeting with the handler in Act 3 before the destroyer raid; and finally the confrontation with Emil.

A bunch of problems emerged, however. This sort of story involves middlemen, patsies, cat’s paws etc that keep the true conspirator from being revealed until the detective punches through. Whereas a lot of mysteries provide far more evidence of the true suspect early on, and usually you meet the Persons of Interest so you can assess them and pick apart lies and their vested interests over the course of the book. The story had an inherent flaw as a result.

The more you want this to be a pure mystery, the more annoyed I suspect you’ll be with the middle of the book, as it follows the evidence trail. There are a bunch of motive hints and other details there, which are explained later by Nick (possibly too early, but I was getting negative feedback over the mystery). Stuff like the intent of the protesters, how fast things changed, and the companies found in Hazinder’s mainframe.

The flip side is also true. Because these books are more mystery and cyberpunk than action-thrillers, the action continues to play second-fiddle to literally everything else. I think Nick does the least fighting in this book of all of them.

Originally, the end of Act 2 attack was intended to be a raid on the Avalon Spire by the CIA. Hence Helena’s gun on the cover. It would have given the Paladins a chance to shine and Nick would have done stuff.

That didn’t happen for two reasons: first, I already did the escalation thing in Book 2, which is where that plot element came from. Remember, substantial elements of this book are lifted from my original plans for Book 2. Repeating the same beats as when the energy weapon was used seemed pointless.

The second reason was pacing. I would have needed to squeeze in the attack while still doing the drinks, Meta’s sex scene, the interrogation with Vic, lunch with Stone etc. That would have meant no real action scene between the morgue and this one. If you recall the planning post, I mentioned that I needed more action. Well, making Lucas a target and bringing the action forward to the night of the drinks did this, especially after I condensed the Altnet scenes.

The downside is that it means the action is somewhat lacking, but I think at this point I can’t really deliver that. Apparently some people still think there’s plenty of it, but I guess it depends on how well the tension works for you if Nick isn’t directly fighting.

I’m also pretty sure I made this mystery too difficult. Pretty much all the reviews seem to indicate they didn’t guess who was behind it. This is almost certainly due to how chaotic the writing process was. If you’re keyed in, you might assume Emil is responsible in Chapter 6, but there are so many hints otherwise later – and his brother flat out lies to lead you away from the pair later. At the same time, the hints regarding the Shudder being a way to overhaul the implant industry are too subtle. Aesir ends up being a double bluff due to plausible deniability.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Authors

Some of you might remember how this book came to be, due to my ramblings about Book 2’s genesis, but time for a recap with a little more detail this time.

The original outline of Book 2 was a murder mystery that revolved around Kraus’s assassination and the Altnet. Kraus would get offed at the start by some high-spec mercs and the hunt for his data backups took Nick deep into the Altnet (and into Asgard – remember that red herring?). Nick would rely on Sung’s help initially, but it would quickly escalate as it turned out that Kraus had effectively decentralized his data backup. The mercs start offing everyone involved, including multiple streamers, and everything goes to hell. This would involve Karina being placed under police protection as the corporate suspect is identified (as Kraus had evidence on them), and some sort of major raid on a big corporation or bank would cap off the book.

I believe the Aesir legal decision was going to be made as well, in an attempt to force Nick to back off. This book was the escalatory bridge in a trilogy, remember. The Aesir decision on the premium implants combined with a major corporation going down would result in a massive civil problem in Book 3, which Nick would need to deal with in some way.

But I’ve shoved that plan aside now, in favor of a longer, more episodic series. Will there be some sort of major escalation that leads into more riots, or an NLF attack, or something similar that causes Nick to finally make a decisive move for or against the Spires? Maybe. But there’s much more time to establish the world, the players, the stakes, and the consequences for however things go down.

I didn’t want to throw away everything, though. Book 2 used parts of the original plot, such as Kraus, the mercs, and an internal escalation (now caused by the use of energy weapons). That left me with the Altnet and streamers.

My original idea was simple: try to do the original Book 2 plot, but with different causes. Instead of Kraus being offed, it would be a terrorist attack using the Altnet. Rather than chasing data backups, Nick was following an evidence trail that implicated streamers. No mercs, just foreign spies. And while there was a company behind it, the lack of a big escalation meant I needed some way to sweep it under the rug – which made the CIA a great villain for a darker book, with Nick using the shittiness of the city against an untouchable suspect.

This is more or less what you got, which is probably why the book still works. The start and the end didn’t really change – I had the destroyer raid and CIA handler in mind when I started the book. But I rewrote a lot of the middle. The Altnet was supposed to play a much greater role, Vic was more of a real villain, there were more influencers, and Emil and the CIA more twist villains. But the theme came across as too preachy and topical (and, most likely, parts of it hit too close to home for me to write at the moment), I struggled to make the Altnet work in execution, and pacing was difficult.

“Corruption” became the new theme. It’s fairly light, when all is said and done. If you’re familiar with Demon’s Throne, then you’ve heard the spiel on corruption before.

In many ways, this theme of corruption is about “tone from the top.” If you’re not familiar with the term, then it’s a management term for how senior executives influence the organization simply through how they act and communicate to others, because that will filter to the lower ranks. If the CEO wants cuts, they don’t need to fire people, they just indicate that they’re in hard times and others will start cutting in anticipation. This also works for corruption for the same reason.

But it applies outside of organizations, and that’s where I wanted to go. Hence why it became an easy fit. Corruption is fairly broad, and it was an easy fix to have a rogue CIA agent acting in line with unspoken directives from above (that may or may not exist); implant manufacturers collectively hiding a huge flaw; Aesir defending Vic Ferrite because they didn’t want to risk being implicated in the Shudder; and Vic being a greedy, shady bastard because that’s what he felt was normal as an influencer. Even Karina fit in, as she nearly lost her shot at being an influencer for pushing back at corruption.

Virtual Worlds are Weird

But for now, let’s talk about the Altnet itself. Or more specifically, the virtual ocean.

Ultrarealistic virtual reality worlds that imitate life are a staple of cyberpunk. Despite all the hubbub over Snow Crash, they predate it (naturally, as Snow Crash is right at the end of the “classics” of cyberpunk). More importantly, they also predate any technology capable of producing any form of usable virtual reality.

Despite overconfident internet posts claiming otherwise, while VR existed in the 80s and 90s, it was basically garbage. Oculus was big because it made VR possible after the false bubble, even if still has a bunch of hurdles (wired vs wireless; display fidelity; nausea; senses other than sight etc). So it’s only in the last decade or so that we’ve truly begun to see how people might use VR in any meaningful way.

Even more importantly, the people using VR exist in a much more modern era. Cyberpunk predated the personal computer, cell phones, mass miniaturization of everything electronic, online shopping, social media, influencers, and so much more.

This makes cyberpunk—or at least the classics—feel very dated. Part of the reason the original genre can’t be continued in the modern day is that the genre it grew out from—dystopia—doesn’t even exist anymore. While people argue over ridiculous definitions of cyberpunk (no, “post-cyberpunk” isn’t a thing, go away), the reality is that both cyberpunk and dystopia grew out into much broader settings and ideas. The general political meanings remain important, however. Japan might not be taking over the world, but is China? The old fears of the US shattering into pieces have reemerged. And corporations remain as problematic as ever.

But virtual worlds… well, they still suck. We know better than ever.

Some 25 years ago, a huge stock market bubble formed as executives clambered to make loads of money from the Internet without understanding. You can read all sorts of stories about the Dot Com Bubble. A fun one I’ll bring up is the creation of virtual shopping malls. The idea that people would want to walk around, Metaverse-style but using a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and look at low-poly shopfronts, with shitty 3D versions of products. People hated it. The companies who made this stuff went down like the fucking Titanic.

If you know about Decentraland, then you might be wondering how we repeated history. Well, the same way we’ve repeated history all those other times.

But the internet didn’t die with the Dot Com Bubble, despite countless predictions at the time that it would. Online shopping now dominates. A lot of ideas that failed in that bubble are now a reality. How much of that applies to the current virtual reality stuff is a mystery.

What it means is that it’s really hard to create a virtual world that feels real. Especially when I’ve used VR headsets, the various virtual world apps, and generally bumped into problems. I tried to remove any obvious obstacles, but just as cyberpunk failed to predict the cell phone and the online shopping boom was a surprise to many following the Dot Com Boom, I’m certainly no Nostradamus.

Most of the problems revolve around “why.” Why would people spend time in the virtual ocean? Why would companies invest in it? If people and companies are there, how do they minimize friction, because nobody wants a virtual world that is an exact match for the real one (unless it’s a video game, but this isn’t a VRMMO).

In the end, most of these problems became economic. Companies like the virtual ocean because it’s cheap. Infinite theme park space with low maintenance costs. People can have larger virtual lives than physical ones. Travelling to a virtual concert or meeting can feel just as real thanks to the implants, but without traffic or a commute.

What I avoided were many of the current “popular” reasons used to advertise the Metaverse. FOMO is one. Nostalgia is the other. I ignored the whole “virtual land” aspect for good reason, instead only using the mobile game-like monetization through Primum.

So let’s talk about nostalgia.

Anemoia (or Weird Nostalgia)

You may or may not have encountered the term anemoia. It’s mostly used by the liminal space community to refer to the strange feeling of nostalgia generated by the places they’re creating. I’ll leave it up to others to talk about that niche thing, as it’s not my jam.

But the term itself has a broader use. Anemoia emerged well before liminal spaces became popular, and simply describes a nostalgia for a life you never lived or a place you never experienced. It is, without a doubt, a very escapist emotion. It exists in politics and is a raw, powerful force.

And it’s become a lynchpin of modern cyberpunk. The term used for cyberpunk these days is often “retrofuturism.” A vision of the future as seen from the 1980s, but not the 1980s that actually existed. The real 1980s were fractious, unstable, enmeshed in the Cold War, still dealing with aftermath of the greatest global economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the media of the time reflects that (as it always does). Blade Runner’s neon future is just Tokyo, due to real fears that Japan would take over the world.

These days, cyberpunk has splintered. A lot of people like the nostalgic elements. Retrofuturistic cyberpunk is a setting aesthetic equivalent to steampunk. You’ll find music mixes and lots of art like this, especially from the hype train that led up to Cyberpunk 2077. On the flip side, there’s stuff that’s modernized and incorporated the spiritual elements of cyberpunk, much like dystopia slid into regular fiction. And, yes, sometimes people try to write new “classics” and fail, because nobody reads the stuff (seriously, aiming at a community that actively tries to exclude any book written after the early 1990s is like trying to fail).

The Neon Gardens of the Altnet were a little bit of gentle prodding at the neon aesthetic of cyberpunk. I even threw in a twist on the Ready Player One line about advertising.

It’s not that the aesthetic is bad, but that it’s hollow. Especially as it ignores the reason why it exists. We know that technology isn’t going to look anything like we thought it would 40 years ago. Computer graphics especially have changed completely, from a time when black backgrounds were used due to underpowered arcade cabinets.

You can see the evolution of these ideas more in anime cyberpunk, although the shift in audience interests to isekai (and the fact a lot of people only watched a couple of the old classics). Psycho-Pass (the first season, mostly) is, to me, one of the best examples in ages and relatively unknown. It’s a major inspiration behind the series, such as how the Archangels work, the role of the police, and Nick’s position.

In terms of the book, while Nick felt some level of nostalgia toward aspects of the Altnet, I tried to deviate from the expected norms. Hence why the meditation field looked so different. People would want interesting spaces to lure them into the virtual ocean, and not just “Blade Runner.”

The Deep Six Club where the influencers hang out was clearly modelled on World of Warcraft. Some of Sung’s comments are intended to be ironic, but I didn’t want to be too on-the-nose, so left it to readers to notice or care. But a huge castle in the clouds with modern equipment isn’t exactly unique. Especially if it’s owned and run by the future equivalent of Amazon (owner of Twitch).

The identical rooms when they switch “sub-zones” is intended to mirror how Discord channels work (and other chat rooms). Why create a bunch of meeting rooms to mirror reality when you can just duplicate the main area and limit the participants? Stuff like this was what I wanted to include in order to avoid the nonsensical nature of so many virtual worlds depicted in fiction.

After all, we know how people use communication software already. Why wouldn’t virtual reality versions mirror that, instead of less efficient IRL interaction? Anything else just feels like a repeat of “virtual shopping malls”. Then again, VRMMOs make me constantly question if anyone who writes them ever played an MMO, so eh.

Ultimately, wrangling with all of these issues with virtual worlds and the problems made it difficult to work with them, personally. I suspect it’s more of a problem with perfectionism. I disliked a lot of my ideas and what I drafted up, so kept cutting parts. There was also a lot of showing off stuff for the sake of showing it, and it didn’t seem important, as the Altnet ended up being a sideshow. This is the same problem VRMMOs can have, as the stakes are too low.

The most important parts ended up being related to Helena and the Archangels. I expect future visits will be related to personal aspects, rather than the city, except in an emergency. Hel’s power over the Altnet and her magnanimous nature may allow me to make the Altnet more interesting in the future.

After all, it’s possible she might be able to make it truly dangerous if she can strip away the Archangels’ god powers there.

Escalation and Foreign Involvement

Moving on from the virtual side, let’s talk about reality. Specifically, the source of all the tension in this book.

The involvement of the CIA ratcheted up the stakes immensely, while allowing me to experiment with a different type of adversary. In the past, action scenes have been directly threatening to Nick. This time, while the Archangels worried about him, the CIA avoided direct confrontation with him. That might not have been clear at the time (and I don’t think I explained it directly) but it makes sense in hindsight.

Nick is both powerful and of interest to Smythe, the CIA handler. Eliminating him does her no favors. If anything, it will just result in the Archangels vaporizing the CIA in Neo Westphalia and genuinely pushing both countries closer to war.

So the CIA agents ran from Nick at the morgue, the G5s targeted Lucas openly to send a message to Nick (and probably intentionally failed, given they brought no extra anti-armor weaponry), and Smythe only made a mild attempt on his life during the raid on her base.

At the same time, it’s strongly implied that the CIA have vastly greater capabilities. They’re limited by their friendly status, because walking around with illegal military dolls is too much (and would draw attention). But as seen at the end, they had a destroyer filled with a small army of dolls and warbots. Sure, the Archangels rolled over it, but most countries can’t deploy a hundred Black Hawk-equivalents with door-mounted railguns and a thousand state-of-the-art military dolls masquerading as police dolls, plus flying artillery support.

The mystery of whether Aesir and the CIA intentionally caused the Shudder is one I quite like about the book. It reflects reality, perhaps a little too well.

Aesir is deeply involved with the Shudder, but there’s no proof they had any clue what was going on. Sure, they benefit immensely, have strong political and economic ties to the US (whose rogue agent caused the attack), and took strong legal action to stall the investigation. But companies are fooled by bad actors all the time, and are obliged to protect their shareholders etcetera, etcetera.

The CIA’s role is more obvious, given Smythe clearly covered for Wise’s escape and knew where he had gone, but their motivation is hard to place. Wise hated Smythe. Was her unknown director involved? They’re both supposedly equals. So there is still some level of vagueness, and the problem is swept under the rug for diplomatic reasons. The US helped resolve the crisis and shrugged off the loss of an agent and the “decommissioned” destroyer.

Long-term, this level of escalation will have ramifications, particularly as Nick got pulled into foreign drama. I don’t expect to continue it in every book. But it is nice to have ripped the bandaid off, as now I can use foreign operatives for more interesting stuff, or as an excuse to supply more dangerous equipment (such as illegal cybernetics and biochrome) to regular suspects.

The Benevolent Dictator

I dunno how many of you are aware of the Cincinnatus story. I skimmed over the details in the book, because it was only a jumping off point for the conversation Smythe wanted to have.

But the story behind Cincinnatus is interesting by itself, both in relation to Nick and the series.

The whole story of Rome being able to appoint a Dictator with ultimate power is widely used. Even the Dark Knight film referred to it, which is where the famous “die a hero or see yourself become the villain” quote came from. Rome itself was infamously bureaucratic as a republic, with numerous offices and overlapping governing institutions that checked the power of others. The point of a Dictator was to cut through the nonsense in times of crisis. That crisis was, ordinarily, barbarians at the gates or a plot to overthrow the country.

Naturally, by the end of the republic, the role of dictator was what we think of today: to abuse supreme power and overrule the desires of the common people. The two most famous dictators are Sulla and Caesar. The latter destroyed the republic, but Sulla set the events in motion. The entire thing is mired in Roman politics (and historians squabbling about who was the villain for destroying Rome), but, ultimately, a political power struggle between conservative and progressive factions turned violent and Sulla used military power to seize control and brutally suppressed everyone—initially those who opposed the conversative Optimates, and then those opposed him. Caesar then followed the path of the man whose reign of terror he’d grown up under.

But Cincinnatus is a feel good story of how this office of Dictator was instead used to protect Rome, no matter how shitty the country might be.

According to the story (which is, naturally, believed to be propaganda by modern historians) Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a former general whose son was sentenced to death and Cincinnatus himself was fined so much that he was reduced to poverty. As such, the general retired to farm his family land.

He was appointed to Dictator twice. The first was during a threat to Rome by barbarians. By now, Cincinnatus has been effectively bankrupted after a life serving Rome and is being approached to protect Rome by the very people who took everything away. He accepts, raises an army, and destroys the barbarians. He does not take vengeance against anyone or take back any wealth. His second dictatorship (which likely never happened) was due to a conspiracy by a nobleman to make himself King. Cincinnatus sentence the noble to death, then gave up the dictatorship.

In truth, Cincinnatus was a wealthy noble, violently opposed progressive reforms suggested by the plebs (i.e. the regular people, who had their own governing assembly), and his son was killed in retribution for murder. He almost certainly abused his power as dictator and, if appointed at all, parts of the story are potentially combined with other generals who fought off major invasions.

But the myth is a great bedtime story for rich people with immense power who want to believe they can be protected in times of crisis by the truly virtuous, despite how awfully they might treat those beneath them. Hence why they play up Cincinnatus’s downfall and gloss over the fact he was as human and fallible as anyone else. The story is an Aesop, rather than historical fact.

Hence Smythe’s point about the benevolent dictator. The difference is that the Spires are internally at war about who that dictator should be.

One side wants a fully automated Cincinnatus, because they inherently distrust anyone with that level of power. At the same time, why will the robots be better or that trustworthy? Google has arguably already proven that fully automating something that isn’t ready for automation just creates a highly visible train wreck (no matter how much they lie online that everything is working as intended).

Others want some level of control over the robots. They want a real Cincinnatus, but presumably one they personally trust or can at least keep in check. The question is, what carrot can they use to keep a man with supreme power loyal?

This played out with Kim and Stone in the end, with Stone shunting Kim aside (for now). At the same time, Ezekiel has been demoted in importance. The leader of the Archangels and prophet sent to represent God/humanity remains an open question.

The Humanity of AI

The dolls have always been very human, but with certain idiosyncrasies. So there’s a natural question to whether they’re property or human, and Nick is forced to face it when the AI influencers crop up.

Broadly, Nick treats dolls and mainframes as people. I’ve largely avoided any cheap “kick the dog” scenes where people or villains beat up defenseless dolls just to show how callous humans are, because I don’t think that’s realistic. For much the same reason we watch a film and think that the people mistreating humanlike dolls are literal garbage, it’s not entirely reasonable that the average person would act like that in public. In private, sure. But there hasn’t been a need to show some punks beating up a random delivery doll, only to get slapped with a fine by a Liberator (and potentially some new teeth and casts if they’re dumb enough to resist arrest).

But there is a gap between Nick and society. Hammond has a robot maid that he likely cares about and the Liberators are seen positively by the city. But AIs are property. A company relies on mainframes to operate. If an employee falls in love with a doll, they can’t elope with her. Imagine the problems if a mainframe falls in love with a customer and starts moving heaven and earth (within the company) to help them. Tiferet could cause immense damage to GWT in order to help Nick. So there are good (financial) reasons to treat AIs purely as property.

Yet the new emotion engines are being built to mimic humans. Hazinder is vain and desires social contact. As bratty as she acted, her attitude toward Nick changed as she dealt with him. Tiferet loved, lost, and suffered for it in GWT. Helena, of course, is one step of traumatized (and has effectively been lobotomized) due to what’s happened in Neural Spike. All three of the Archangel prototypes have deep-seated issues, which conflict with their core programming that they can’t go against.

As humans, we can choose to go against what has been “chosen for us” as described by government, parents, school, religion, work, or whatever else. Horrible things might happen, but we can do it. A robot can’t do that. They’re programmed to achieve a specific purpose. A robot taxi might dream of electric sheep, but it’s still going to try to ferry passengers back and forth until something breaks down.

There are some exceptions to that rule that I might end up exploring, but I’m still wary of going down the full Skynet path. Again, I very much want the source of all problems and solutions to be rooted in humans, rather than to use an “evil AI” copout.

The Elephant in the Room

AI development continues to happen IRL and, honestly, it’s kind of exhausting. Some of the developments are interesting, but much of it is just what could be expected, especially with so much investment forming around it. The internet makes it worse. The topic remains as charged as always, but as overall opinion turned negative, less effort was put in shitting on AI, and instead any topic on AI is immediately brigaded by pro-AI groups and anything negative on it in a lot of spaces gets shit on instantly.

Book 2 had a single line taking a crack at the way current AI stuff is put together. A similar joke got flagged this time as “too topical.”

But you’ll notice that even though AI influencers are a key aspect, I don’t really talk specifics. I’m sure the use of them gets under the skin of some people as too topical, but this is a series about the automation of the police force in the current year. They can keep talking about how pulp is the peak of the genre or whatever.

The main reason I wanted to stay away from the elephant in the room was because it’s changing too fast to pin down. Anything I included could be outdated by the time the book came out, even.

While I was writing the book, Microsoft announced it would incorporate AI writing modules into Office 365 (or whatever they call it now) as part of an extra subscription. The idea of Outlook, Excel, Word etc having AI built into will modify a ton of offices. Some probably view this as amazing. A major tech commentator saw the news and immediately said this would empower the laziest people whose only talent is appearing busy, because now they had a tool to do their work for them. I can believe that, as I’ve worked with my share of fakers who had BS’d their way through life, and AI may greatly empower them rather than replace them (I mean, I already wrote Lieu in Book 1).

What will actually happen? Who the fuck knows.

As such, I mostly focused more on the potential impacts on automation, and couched it in real life examples of widespread job loss and industry destruction. Even if something is inevitable, that doesn’t mean it’s unproblematic or unworthy of thought. It might be easier to not think about the problem, but I’ll leave not thinking to others.

The CIA Handler

In Book 2, I introduced Lilith and Harris. Both played an important role in the book. Lilith will make a reappearance in either Book 4 or 5 (not sure yet), especially given Steph’s stellar voice acting of her. But Harris is difficult to reuse.

Which sucks, as Harris worked really well as a foil to Nick. His background is the opposite to Nick’s and his beliefs are staunchly the opposite, despite their paths leading to largely the same direction. The Cincinnatus situation is similar: Harris is the Cincinnatus for the space elevator, despite Lilith’s overall power.

The idea to create Smythe came up during early brainstorming, right as I switched from Spellblade to Neural Wraith. I wanted an antagonist that wasn’t more borg’d out mercs, and during a discussion with an IRL reader I know, the idea of a long-term foil came up—somebody that Nick could bounce off, but who could act as either ally or enemy based on the situation.

Hence why Smythe is openly trying to influence Nick. Her words can’t be trusted, as she’s trying to appeal to his jaded cynicism. At the same time, she grants a new world view and access to information previously unavailable. I will be able to use her to bring up interesting topics and act as a useful informant, sometime ally, and occasional antagonist in the future if the series goes on long enough.

I did ditch a couple of the topics I planned to discuss with Nick using her, mostly for thematic reasons. Cincinnatus fit better than the originally planned topic of “collective responsibility” when the theme of corruption took over from the idea of society letting people like Vic and companies like Aesir get away with shit. I might still reuse it, if the time comes when Smythe can exploit Nick’s frustration toward the people of Babylon.

Karina & Vic Ferrite

First, I’ll be clear that neither Karina or Vic represent any person in particular. Karina isn’t me or any nonsense like that. And Vic isn’t any person in particular.

Rather, they represent generalized issues in the online content creator sphere. Vic is an exaggerated boogeyman, taken from a bunch of the more obnoxious creators: your Logan Pauls, xQcs, Asmongolds etc with a dash of content mills thrown in with the AI influencers.

Originally, Vic would be more villainous, because other influencers would offset his shittiness. I’ll talk about this toward the end of the commentary, but once I nixed all the other influencers, I needed to tone Vic done. He still lacks nuance, but he’s more of a greedy dipshit than a mustache-twirling villain.

Which is why he repeats some of the real fears that content creators talk about. The idea of the audience just not being there is something commonly talked about by a lot of streamers and youtubers. “Falling off” happens so often that anyone not worried about is either fabulously wealthy already or their brain melted due to an overload of arrogance. Even long-term giants like Linus Tech Tips have had scares where they’ve worried about this. It’s why so many streamers justify “taking the bag” on a lot of deeply unethical stuff (or even blatant scams). Vic channels that fear into a logical extreme of awful behavior, well beyond starting scammy PC building companies or bad talent agencies, or dodgy sponsorships.

By contrast, Karina is the opposite. Her interest in streaming is driven primarily by avoiding the horrors of office drudgework. Again, I cut much of her original scenes (which is why she got shoehorned in here), but she does genuinely enjoy streaming. The focus is on the financial due to the scene and to capture her fears.

Karina got caught up in a dodgy corporation, bailed, and nearly lost everything. Being ethical was a terrible choice, because she overestimated the decency of the people around her. She’s doing well now, despite being isolated, but only because the Archangels have flocked to her and are propping her up (through questionable means, but who’s going to investigate them? The police?)

When Nick brings up the number of viewers Karina gets, she briefly gets scared. This is because she knows something is wrong with her viewers. She’s not questioning the situation, because doing so last time nearly fucked her over. I left this part out, but other influencers would be deeply skeptical of her numbers (which is why she bragged about the 24/7 part). The issue is that the same people questioning her numbers refused to say a thing about Altvivere or Vic and joined in the blacklist. It’s difficult to give a shit about the opinions of people you know support dodgy behavior when they question something else. Pot, kettle, black.

This is also why there’s a strong focus on the financial aspect here. The motivating force on why the fears that drive them to do what they do, rather than the love of streaming.

Everyone would love to do what they love the most, but they need to pay the bills. There’s a balance to be made. Youtubers, streamers, selfpub authors, musicians, etc get significantly more latitude to do something they enjoy. At the same time, there’s a point where they need to ensure they’re still making money. But at what point is it too much?

Deleted/Unfinished Scenes

Quite a few, but most of it relates to the Altnet stuff I cut.

· Sung was supposed to reappear and catch up with Nick after the Vic interrogation. This would cap off the Vic situation and explain some of the dodgier actions taken, but felt unnecessary if I explained some stuff earlier and also risked being a bit preachy.

· The Altnet was supposed to take place over two visits. The first visit would end with Hazinder, then a second visit would deal with Vic the following morning.

· Nick’s family was supposed to appear, inviting him to a family lunch to celebrate something related to his younger brother (either a birthday or job-related). This would establish some of the tension following the Shudder, as well as what Ciphers actually did in other roles. It got cut because the Altnet visit got shortened. Stone would have interrupted this lunch to invite Nick to the restaurant.

· Patrons already know this, but Nick originally visited Asgard after the morgue and met Seung Hyeon then. This established Asgard’s dodgy behavior and their protection of Vic, but slowed down the pacing a lot. Asgard itself didn’t need to be shown off in so much detail and the visit felt like a distraction right as the case should be picking up speed.

· Athena and Hel were supposed to talk to Nick after the first Altnet visit, which is where the ability of their interfaces to walk around the Spires would be shown off.

· I had intended to end the book with a café scene involving Sung and Karina, after cutting the earlier Sung scene. This would have also covered the loose thread with Chloe, as Nick never talks to her about her role in the Host now that the Mark 3s are around. It didn’t get written as I struggled to come up with enough good ideas at such a late stage.

· Kraus was originally supposed to help in some way in the original outline. I wanted to use him to find the CIA, but it seemed extraneous and odd that he’d have those sorts of connections.

· Smythe was originally Wise. The bartender was intended to be the handler at one point, but I decided this didn’t work well in terms of pacing, especially as I always planned for a showdown at the end and needed a pre-established villain. This is also part of the reason the Archangels hung around the bar in that scene, although it still works in retrospect (they’re just staying out of Nick’s way).

Nick and the Alpha Problem

The introduction of biochrome brought up an important question: if Nick biochromed up, what floof would he get?

But seriously, we are reaching a point where Nick’s normality is putting some level of strain on the series. The enemies become more dangerous, and Nick gets surrounded by a denser shield of dolls. In a fight, he can’t really do anything except watch because he’s utterly outclassed.

The problem is that I don’t really want Nick to ever be strong or capable enough to take on the dolls that would be truly threatening enough. A random cyborg isn’t threatening to an Archangel. Opponents like Dallas and Perry are dangerous because they’re highly skilled and experienced, on top of their cybernetics. At the same time, the prototypes can nuke them effortlessly. Ezekiel and Uriel have fucking forcefields, and Kushiel is a walking, flying battle tank.

Something needs to give. Biochrome gives me some solution to this, but it’s almost too clean. The trade-off between biochrome and regular cybernetics is primarily in the level of capability and upgradeability. Biochrome can be swapped out through surgery, because it integrates with the body, but carry the downside of being less capable. Whereas regular cybernetics are strong as shit, but can’t be easily upgraded as the sockets are highly invasive and get outdated.

Nick will be getting some sort of upgrade. It will likely happen next book, won’t necessarily be entirely positive (but it will be a net positive), and will make him capable enough to contribute in a fight but still weak enough that prototypes and military dolls outclass him.

Kushiel Still Writes Herself

My favorite doll and the character frequently brought up by everyone as really well-written or included in fantastic character development scenes. Kushiel slides into scenes easily, has lots of character, has more depth than a bag of tropes, and gets to develop and show herself off through lots of little actions.

I suspect the reason Kushiel works is because I have a clear vision of her archetype (jaded bully girl with deep-seated trust issues, but she secretly wants someone to love and be a little more dominant). Also, because she’s expressive, it’s easy to showcase her personality, even in short scenes, as well as the more interesting facets. When she’s acting differently, it’s clear that something’s up. By contrast, Meta and Chloe are far more subtle unless they’re flat out saying what they feel.

Finally, Kushiel is just lots of fun to write. I like bully girls. Sue me. But while I guarantee a bunch of people would really like to end the teasing a book ago, I’m also a fan of genuine slow burn where Kushiel is becoming genuinely close to Nick. She’s more interested in being friends with him, than to fuck. At least, that’s been the case for the most part.

The Existential Pain of Being Ezekiel

Speaking of slow burn, we have Ezekiel. I don’t even know if she counts as slow burn, given she strongly dislikes Nick.

Ezekiel’s situation is complicated. She was built, trained, and instructed to lead the Archangels. Yet, through no fault of her own, she’s failed at everything she set out to do. Nick had taken her job, Rie (who she felt deeply guilty about replacing) has become her equal, and she’s effectively been shunted aside. RTM is even working on their own prototype which might replace the Liberators, and potentially threaten the Archangels themselves.

On the plus side, Ezekiel’s role is easy. She respects Nick and his abilities, even if she undermines him and wishes he didn’t exist. This means she can prod at his ideas and question his conclusions. I view her as the girl in school who studies really hard under extremely harsh parents, but always comes second behind Nick. Even if she respects his results, the fact she puts in so much effort makes her absolutely hate him.

Ezekiel needs to break and be picked back up by Nick before anything can really happen. The alternative would be for her to get on top of him, but that would be deeply unhealthy for both of them (and require a really long series to fix, as it would require Nick to fall, and then enough time for him to get back up).

As you can probably guess, Ezekiel’s issues relate back to the larger problem of AIs being programmed to accomplish specific tasks. Ezekiel is failing utterly at which she is programmed to do, and flailing as a result. Where Helena’s existential issue is rooted in finding a purpose, Ezekiel’s is more that her purpose is being fulfilled by others.

Rie, Helena, and Chloe Hanging Around

Helena was on the cover of the book, but while she helped a lot during the Altnet and had a brief character moment regarding her existential issues, she mostly fell into the same issue as Rie and Chloe.

Namely, that a lot of the time, they just hover around Nick.

These three characters, plus Meta, explain things throughout the book. Their roles are similar but I try to use them for subtly different things. Meta handles purely factual explanations or Host-related stuff, Chloe broader or opinion-based topics, Rie is more for investigation or anything Spires-related, and Helena catches a lot of extra topics or anything that requires a broader view of the world. Although Helena’s connection to Hel is granting her an extra role now.

This keeps them involved, but can feel a bit superficial. Especially when their character isn’t developing. Due to the shorter word count of the books, I don’t have the space to give every single character an arc or development in each book. Rie and Chloe made no real progress this book.

I’ll need to be careful with that. I don’t know how long the series will be, and I don’t want to leave the characters dangling if the series sales falls of a cliff (which is a real risk due to the genre becoming cotton candy like it is). Episodic can go both ways in terms of how I write the series. I need to be careful about using it as an excuse to be lazy.

Expanding the Roster

Speaking of extending the series, I added a bunch of new characters and potential love interests.

Athena got plenty of focus here and her potential interest in Nick became clearer. I chose to use her over Omoikane, because this book was about working with the judges, not against them like in Book 2. Given the number of characters already around, I may or may not introduce Isis, who is supposed to be another rather attractive judicial mainframe.

Hel also showed up, but her role is more magnanimous. The cover preview made it clear that she will have some sort of pseudo-villainous role. As she represents the Spires first and foremost, I like the fact she can be both supportive of Nick but also a way to curtail the power and influence of the Archangels.

Inari popped up to represent the Mark 3s, but I’m unlikely to do too much with her. Realistically, it’s just too many androids with others already around.

RTM’s prototype android got a brief appearance. I want to have some fun with the prototypes. She’s one, and there’s the potential to bring back the Mark 1 prototypes that vanished when Neural Spike was taken down.

Dupont exists, but she’s no love interest. She’s very much intended to be a shady character in the Spires who will be reappearing. This book served as a great way to expand on Deusoma and their position in Babylon, especially with respect to Aesir.

Finally, Hazinder will play the role of Helena’s assistant in the future. She’s bratty, but some definitely like that, especially as she’s definitely low on the rungs of power.

What All the Names Mean

It’s that time again. Wankery time with weird names. I don’t think there were too many this time. Stephanie should be happy, as I think the weird pronunciations of the sefirah was a bit much (seriously, finding ones I was happy with was painful).

· Altvivere is an allusion to Hololive, the Vtuber group. “Vivere” is French for “live.” This is just for fun, and not a crack at Hololive.

· Tutank Neomind means literally nothing. I just wanted something that sounds vaguely Russian or Eastern European.

· Vadim Smith has that name for a reason. He’s clearly Russian. The implication is that Russian surnames have been changed to something acceptable, much like German names were after WW2.

· Gabrielle Dupont’s surname is quite common, but it is a deliberate reference to the chemical company Dupont and its many controversies. Gabrielle is a very shady character who will be reappearing.

· “Vic Ferrite” is a reference to the cheesy pen names used by pulp authors (especially in harem) and their protags, which is why Nick calls him Biff Hardcheese at one point. The latter is actually a reference to an old meme image with lots of really stupid “manly names.”

· Vic’s real name, Otis Baker, was chosen to sound “unmanly” but also as a reference to Felix. For some reason, two really big content creators (pewdiepie and xQc) have Felix as their first name. It’s also the name of a famous cat, and Otis is a common dog’s name.

· Sam Wise is clearly a reference to Samwise Gamgee, the LotR character.

· Smythe Colombus refers to two historical figures. The latter is obvious, Christopher Colombus. The former is Thomas Smythe, the first governor of the East India Company, and should tell you how the US views the CIA’s role in Babylon.

· Hel’s name is a reference to the same goddess in Norse myth and is very fitting. Her name is primarily about her role managing the Altnet and the idea that humanity might be shoved in it Matrix-style. It’s a similar naming reason to Lilith.

· The DAO (Department of Altnet Operations) is a crypto reference/joke, and not intended to be a kind one. DAO’s are intended to be automated “machines” that run companies according to the will of the owners using crypto tokens (with no leeway allowed to the machine). The fact that this “DAO” is nearly automated, but Hel has almost complete latitude is a complete subversion of what an actual DAO is. It’s also closer to how actual AI works in real companies that use AI (like Google).

· This isn’t a name, but the US destroyer being so stupidly massive isn’t  mistake or oversight. It’s a joke about the absurd size of the Zumwalt class and the fact NATO “reclassified” a similar-size Chinese destroyer as a cruiser, but didn’t do the same to the US Zumwalt. Originally, I planned to use the US cruiser mentioned at the start of the book for the final battle, but decided that was too crazy (it would be actual war).

Problems Writing the Altnet Arc and Shit I Wanted to Say

The biggest part of the book that I rewrote and edited out was the Altnet section.

Two reasons for this: first, the pacing was awful and I don’t think it would have told a great story. A book about the Altnet and influencer shit would have gotten boring fast, and I felt that while writing it. If I’m not enjoying the process, you probably won’t like the result.

Second, I struggled to write the section without coming across as preachy. This is partly because I’m too close to the topic, but also because it’s really topical at the moment.

A day barely passes without some “massive” drama exploding in the streamer world. Yet nothing really changes on Twitch.

The ability for people to directly upload and create whatever they want, and make a living from it without middlemen, is imo unquestionably good. I don’t really give a shit about the gatekeeper argument.

But it has resulted in fairly obvious problems. Every platform has some. Youtube has probably excelled at limited the damage, due to being around the longest. While plenty of grifters and content mills exist on Youtube, they at least enable a lot of other channels to succeed alongside them.

Vic’s position in the book was a criticism of the increasingly corporatized content mills, and the way content creators become those content mills while pretending otherwise. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s a popular form of success because it removes the “risk.”

This is a feature of these platforms, rather than a bug. Corporations are deemed less of a brand risk, even if they do occasionally implode due to somebody high up doing something fucking awful and dumb.

If you only watch Twitch, you might think they’re immune to this, but that ignore Youtube and Vtubers. Vtubers are huge, and the two largest groups are entirely corporate run. Both went public on the Tokyo stock exchange recently. I don’t have anything against them, but the idea that streaming is an independent thing is, to be blunt, somewhat nonsensical. As time goes on, it will only shift further because younger viewers don’t watch TV. Companies will shift their focus to where the people are.

The other thing I left out was anything about the… problematic nature of so many top content creators. Like, it’s super obvious if you look at Twitch or top youtubers and think “why are so many of them fucking awful people?” Lots of theories can be dreamed up.

To me, it seems obvious this is a matter of the platform rewarding awfulness. The Twitch leak showed how few streamers earn a living. Merely hundreds. By contrast, Amazon’s own figures reveal that thousands (probably close to ten thousand) self-pub authors earn over six-figures a year now from just KDP alone, not audiobooks. Yet the top streamers earn more than selfpub authors, for sure. Twitch’s platform is winner takes all. It’s a cultural issue.

Youtube has moved to limit this problem multiple times. Years ago, top youtubers like Markiplier spoke up about the mental health problems of the daily upload schedules. In response, Youtube modified the algorithm to recommend channels that uploaded less regularly, and they’ve continued to tweak it to allow less frequent uploaders or longform content to succeed. People make a living from huge video essays, these days. Sure, content mills succeed, but so do many other channels.

The problem is nuanced. That was something I had hoped to cover in the book, but doing that while remaining entertaining was fucking hard. Too hard for me. So instead I cut back on the extra crap, focused on the story, and kept in a little bit of the commentary. I think it was the right choice, but decided to include some of what I was thinking about in this commentary.

And, yes, you can probably guess my opinions on some of the selfpub stuff even if I haven’t directly commented on it here.

“Slice of Life” Inclusions

Slice of life is hot shit right now in harem, to the point where it’s a subtitle for literally anything. Maybe I should call Neural Wraith a “Slice of Life Cyberpunk Mystery” for SEO points?

I don’t mind slice of life, although I’ll admit my interest in it has waned since becoming an author. It appealed to me a fair bit when I was an office worker, although I liked slow life more. The inability of the harem genre to produce anything with length or staying power is anathema to that aspect, and the audience mostly rewards short, simple, and uncomplicated.

This is why I don’t really care to write dedicated slice of life. The audience for it feels like the polar opposite to what I enjoy writing. Complexity and worldbuilding scare them off, and they’re what I enjoy. I get feedback that my dialogue feels richer and more interesting than the more perfunctory and functional stuff from other books. The reason for that is because I root almost all dialogue in the worldbuilding and characters, who are in turn based in the world. This is part of the reason I can’t really use AI, because even the latest ChatGPT kind of sucks at anything more than really shallow gesturing at deeper topics or backgrounds.

However, that works really well within my books as it is. Neural Wraith has strong “slice of life” elements for a reason. I wanted to follow Nick everywhere and capture the impact the Archangels had, while also making the series immerse you in the world.

My main inspirations for a lot of the dialogue are the original Deus Ex and VA-11 Hall-A (Valhalla, the cyberpunk bartending game). If you’ve played the latter, you can definitely see its influences in the bar scenes. Kate’s outfit is a reference to Jill’s. Valhalla has a knack for great conversations that hit on deeper topics while still flowing well.

By contrast, Deus Ex is a game where random bartenders, merchants, and journalists will debate you on the fundamentals of democracy, and the nature of autocracy. This is a game loaded with references to almost every conspiracy theory in existence prior to 2000, and that touches on countless questions about issues with governance. It was funny to hear people complain that Human Revolution talked too much about augmentation, because Deus Ex was the same thing but about a different topic. I suspect they talked to fewer people in the older game, if they played it at all.

Will the Mystery Aspect Continue?

With more books in the series to come, one question I’m asking myself is if every book needs to revolve around a case or mystery. One of my core inspirations is the Dresden Files, and that began to use different motivations around Book 7, such as heists, huge necromantic duels etc. So long as there’s some sort of hook, an episodic plot, and an unanswered question to keep people interested, the book might work.

At the same time, I haven’t exactly “mastered” the mystery aspect. Books 4 and 5 could easily be mysteries of varying complexity and type without any trouble. So maybe I’m overthinking things. I might also be making the books far harder to write.

- - - - - - -

That’s it for the commentary. This one involves a lot more of the “artsy” side of my writing.

I had a moment while writing this book that caused an epiphany of sorts. On the harem subreddit, I complained about the absurd amount commercialization in the genre and Bruce Sentar mentioned to just power through it (which is probably the right approach). For some reason, that caused me to realize how weird it is that I’ve always felt that I need to excuse myself for focusing on the “why” I write interesting stuff. I guess I saw so many people constantly say that everything needs to be flat and pulpy, to the point where I questioned if I was wrong to do something more.

Perhaps the real problem is the opposite and I’m perfectly fine to do what I enjoy.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it anyway and ask any questions if you have any.