Reader's Discretion Advised

Dude, this was hecka tense and stuff. Like the stuff of horror movies. It also seemed rather Whovian. Like, Whovian horror (which is more along the psychological plane of horror). I kept expecting Weeping Angels to appear, for some reason.

The style seems to have changed quite drastically from previous installments. There's a lot more head-hopping, and there are god-POVs now.

Another thing is it seems these flies are called "katrami" by all now where before they were merely "the flies" (said with great panic).

There hasn't been a large gap between the 10th and 11th, so I can't fathom why there's such a drastic change in tone from the previous installments. The characterizations of Rak and Jisten seem also subtly different, enough that I can just barely sense it and enough that it still seems rather jarring.

Jethian seems to be pure comic relief now.

This one seems designed to be able to - on some small level - stand alone. There are explanations for things that don't really need explaining, especially if you've been reading since no. 1 (but also, you can figure it out based on context clues, sheesh).

It's like the author suddenly became really self-conscious and started feeling the need to justify things to the reader when the reader didn't need all those excuses and whatnot because they weren't problems. And explaining things that I feel don't need to be explained (Uh, hello. It's the 11th installment. What do you have against the first 10? Why skip all the way to the 11th and expect to know exactly what's going on? No reason at all, therefore there should be no reason to pander to those who have not read up until then and therefore don't understand basic terminology and whatnot).

On another note, hey, hey. We actually get a description of Karpos now. 11th book, no biggie. Not like it was late in coming or anything.
It actually seemed weird and out of place. This installment's got all this exposition and stuff and it's weirding me out because it's the eleventh installment.

Whatever happened with the kironi thing? Wasn't he supposed to receive sperm daily or something to help the baby grow strong? And since that's Jisten now, cuz heart adoption and shit, shouldn't there have been some kironi sex, even if it's weird that the orifice is somewhere on the stomach (if I remember correctly)?

Also, that cover is creepy as fuck. Who's that supposed to be, anyways? Jisten? Nah, can't be. That cover model looks like death warmed over.

There are also other random bits of trivia that make not much sense. It's like the author lost focus and started making up for word count by throwing out random bits of stuff xe came up with by and by.

Why does Jisten know Zafirin? Did he know Zafirin before? Oh, wait. I remember something thrown out about him understanding bits and pieces of Rak before. Still, wtf? What happened to Jisten's character? I mean, before, it kept feeling like there was a shit-ton of character regression going on all the time across installments (You know, just when you think actual progress is being made, it's like certain characters suddenly suffered extreme selective amnesia. Over and over and over. Again. And again).

I know I'm repeating myself, but I keep noticing it. Random bits of random trivia, little excessive explanations, that have me scratching my head (metaphorically) wondering why the fuck they're there.

And again, waaaay too much head-hopping @_@

I mean, I still like this series because angst-fodder, but this installment was more benign. And filled with head-hopping @_@
It made it...feel more...mainstream, somehow. I dunno. It was kind of weird all over.