Theme · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

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 5 — Team Sparkles; the tow
• Chapter 19 — One Fine Pig; Penelope
• Chapter 43 — The cannibals; Great Rusty; Pasty Inferno
• Chapter 47 — Secretions; the twist; One Fine Pig eliminated
• Chapter 69 — The stables: who may leave; the Scavenger myth

Progression

Awakened NPCs run the heats because it helps the story (ch. 5); the losing team's upgrade is chosen by audience vote (ch. 22); 'It’s a game. Don’t you be forgettin’' (ch. 44); every screen in the galaxy is made mandatory (ch. 89).