Theme · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Entertainment as machinery

Everyone Carl meets is a part of the same inexorable machine — Zev's phrase — from the AI that tailors loot to the narrative, to the PR agent who asks him to repeat a line without coughing, to the prince who buys doomed crawlers for a game show. The game is cruel because cruelty is what tunnels.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 3 — A goose from the sky
• Chapter 6 — City hall
• Chapter 9 — Ruckus
• Chapter 10 — Squeeze out the Juice Box
• Chapter 13 — Gerbils
• Chapter 21 — Ghazi
• Chapter 24 — Samantha
• Chapter 28 — Emberus
• Chapter 29 — Where the Red God Glows
• Chapter 33 — Phase three

Progression

A toy commercial to play at fueling depots, whose makers' research says children want to be spoken down to (ch. 18); a toy company that is a lending fund that advocates slavery for tax debt (ch. 17); an admin who calls human culture a contagion and profits from it (ch. 18); a live-streamed boss fight with laughing commentators (ch. 26); a court, a liaison, lawyers (ch. 19, ch. 28); a puppy made fragile so a god will rage (ch. 29); a girl placed in a castle on purpose (ch. 15); a Walk-On List (epilogue). 'We are all prostitutes in one way or another, I suppose' (ch. 13).