Am I the only one so pleased with the ending?

[Urbal T]

Finished this book last night. I must say, I am impressed. But, am I the only person who feels that the book ended exactly as it should have? I probably would've been disappointed if it ended any other way. Going off into spoiler land now...

It was when Nihel killed the SUV driver in the parking lot--first death of the story. I don't know if words can describe how much that pleased me. The book was actually going to get serious, and something was actually going to happen. Then Nihel attacked Rachel, and I was unsure. In fact, Rachel's death worried me a bit--"it would've been much better had she survived," I said to myself, "because then Brian wouldn't need some deus ex machina to bring her back." In fact, I was starting to doubt the ending, until Angus attacked Nihel and got a Bertha to the gut. I had to put the book down for a minute. Not because I was upset. Not because I was sad. Well, I was sad. But, I was also happy--extraordinarily so. Rachel was really dead, and she was going to stay dead.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike her. It's just that her death is ultimately the correct way for the book to end. Her death actually means something. With her death, I can actually feel sad about something. And feeling anything from writing is a major bonus. Everyone who died made the book more real. And Nihel didn't stop with that idle torture of Atomik Lad, slowly killing off the shoppers. He arbitrarily killed 50% of the globe's population, and Atomik didn't do a thing to stop him. No, he couldn't do a thing. No literary sacrifices to keep the heroes heroes.

Finally, there was the question of who would finally defeat Nihel. It seemed like the book was leaning towards Atomik Lad destroying him in rage after Nihel zappified Nuklear Man, but then the book took another turn--Atomik Lad sacrifices himself for Nuklear Man, not the other way around! I was awed by the sheer testicular fortitude of the author. Of course, when Ol' Sparky turned out to have survived that, I was almost disappointed. Then I remembered the whole point about his Field somehow being able to resist negaflux. In fact, it made sense. It didn't just work out that way so he could survive. Not only was there no plot hole, and no deus ex machina, but I was able to experience the death of Atomik Lad, and still see Nuklear Man hand the planet down to him.

In short, thank you, Brian, for ending the book as it should've ended. Something that so many authors cannot, or will not--do not--do.

Not-really-an-edit: And I didn't even know there was going to be a sequel. Eagerly awaiting, of course. Not to put any pressure on you, Brian...

[Jarald]

I'll be honest - the ending made me cry. ;_; However, I did love it to death... er, pun unintended. :P It just worked, better than the ending I thought we were going to get. Yay, Brian!

[houkama]

Actually John's parent's died before then, and maybe that courier did too. I don't have my book on me.

[Kurosen]

The ending is one of the reasons traditional publishers won't touch my book. It challenges convention and "no one wants that" because it hasn't been done because no one wants that because it hasn't been done etc., etc.

I have basically been told that my book isn't banal enough to be successful in the mainstream. And while that frustrates me to nearly having a heart attack every day, I knew it'd be worth it to those few of you who do get to experience it.

[PraetorZorak]

Honestly--I think it's their loss.

I think the ending was fabulous. Totally unexpected and fantastic for the very reason that it dared challenge convention. Which, by the way, made it totally unpredictable. There is not one person here who can say they correctly predicted the ending.

In any case, bravo. It has been highly worthy of my time.

[Urbal T]

Actually...I don't have my book on me.

What courier? :confused:

And I don't think John's parents count...that's backstory. It's one thing to describe a past event where someone died, another to describe someone dying. It's the book equivalent of actually killing someone, compared to talking about having killed someone.

[Kurosen]

Yeah. Remember, the scene where we "see" John's parents die is more of a hallucination than anything else. It's showing that, even in a fantasy world dreamed up by his consciousness to avoid the reality of being "responsible" for the deaths of three billion people, he cannot escape the idea that he killed his parents and Rachel. This is also partly why his Field is so erratic. He's been afraid of it all his life so he's never tried to "own" it. In that sense, it has been controlling him all along. His personal relationships and whole life has all been defined by its existence and the fear he has that he might unintentionally hurt someone else.

In the years between the end of Nuklear Age and the beginning of Atomik Age, John has come to grips with the Field and we'll get to see how it works when he's in charge.

I know some people will be disappointed or feel that it's a cop out not to show how that change in attitude came about, but that wasn't the next big story for a Nuklearverse novel. I promise that we will get hints about that process in the book and that there will be full disclosure in a short story some time later.

[LiamYates]

I thought it was a great ending. To be honest I did hope Rachel would leave/kick the bucket.

However, I didn't like him much during the book until it was too late, but Why did you have to make Angus die?!

[Meister]

The ending was definitely the right thing to happen. Don't get me wrong, I like the book a lot. It's just that I think if the ending hadn't come to pass as it did, it wouldn't have been as great. If it had ended like the 3-400 pages before had been, the whole book would have had a certain kind of aura of "just going on" about it, if you know what I mean.

Come to think of it, it reminds me a bit of Trigun. The first big part of it is very good, funny, a bit goofy, and then out of the blue it goes and blows you away, and you realize that such an ending is even better than what you have seen the entire time. But without diminishing the experience of the parts before it, if that makes sense to you.

Man, now I want to watch Trigun again.

EDIT: And come to think of it, Rachel's Death is just as out of the blue as Black Belt's and has a very similar effect on the reader. Woo! Recurring theme!

[PraetorZorak]

I know we see short bursts of Atomik Lad controlling his field unconsciously, such as when he is flying and it streamlines itself to him, when he was fighting once and it contracted to be like a form-fitting film, and when he got really mad and manifested itself as a giant avatar of his body movements.

[Kairamek]

I'm going to put this whole thing in the Spoiler Zone (tm). It's going to be rather train of consiousness and it will be easier to tag it all than sort though and edit the HTML when I'm done. Ready? Let's go.
I very much enjoyed the ending. It was just what I needed. See, I got rather attached to Rachel and the punchline, as it is called on the last page of the book, almost litterally broke my heart. I laughed so hard I cried. I cried so hard I laughed. (Aside: Congrads Brian, I have never cried because of a book before. Close, but never quite there.) I laughed and cried at the same time, and I essentially had an emotional breakdown. That is probably not the right term. The emotional barriers I had erected to hide my pain and sorrow for the last two and a half years were torn down. You see, I don't connect to people easily; it's my own fault for being guarded and suspitious. So when I do develope a strong bond with someone it is very, very deep for me. And I do mean strong. I'm not talking "your my best friend," I'm talking "I would lay down my life for you because I love you like a brother," or "will you marry me," kind of strong relationship. In late August and early September of 2002 my two closest friends, one of whom I had moved 700 miles to marry, betrayed me. I was cut to the core. Due to circumstances that are too complicated to explain I spent the next year living with and being emotionally abused by the one I was going to marry. That leaves deep scars. Scars that are slow to heal. Even slower because I lived a sheltered life, I'd never been hurt like that before, I'd never dated. Short version, I didn't have any defenses and I didn't know how to deal with it. So for the last 30 months I've lived with that pain bottled up, burried away so I wouldn't have to deal with it, and by not dealing with it I have only added to it through my fear of action, fear of being hurt. Rachel's death, the vivid description of it, ripped those walls down. It was like an enema for the soul, washing out most of the unnessisary shit with which I've pointlessly, unitentionally burdened myself. I feel relieved, refreshed, and ready to try trusting someone again. And just in time for spring. Thank you, Brian. Thank you very much.

Well, that's enough about the emtional effect. That reversal of expections, the punchline that couldn't be because of how it was set up, that is the only way it could be. Despite the fact the first 400 pages set it up be a goofy happy book all the way though; despite the fact half the population, including most of main supporting cast, couldn't have died; despite the fact the world could not be plunged into utter chaos; the book simply could not have ended any other way. Period. Though I am going to miss Rachel's constant stream of double entendre.

[Codemonkey85]

Yeah, it's funny. So far, everyone I've shared this book with has agreed with me... the ending pisses us off. But in a good way.

Actually, one of those friends says the ending is "very Andy Kaufman". When you think about it, very few people on this earth get such a kick out of such a personal prank, especially when they'll never meet so much as five percent of their "victims". And yet, what a prank it was. Lousy loveable book.

[PraetorZorak]

Something you don't ever notice the first time you read it is that the book drops hints the whole time. You think nothing of Nuke's constant threats of cleansing and world domination until the end, when we may realize that such things are glimpses of Arel through the fog that is Nuklear Man's mind. Throughout the book, the situations that the heroes are faced with are continuously more dangerous, each time a little closer to loss of control and mortality. In that sense, there is a building anxiousness in the book in general that things are not quite going the right way, of imminent disaster that only gets stronger as the introduction of Nihel nears. Even when he does, we still fight to retain the illusion that everything will turn out OK, just like every other time in every other story.

And then we get to the punchline.

Every time you read the book after the first, you see things you did not before, even to the point of questioning how you could have possibly missed it.

[Elminster_Amaur]

Well, I must say, I've finally gotten a half a day with which to do absolutely nothing but read, and I have finished reading one of the two books I bought from you last Saturday, and I'm almost completely at a loss for word. Obviously not completely, as I'm typing this, but I'v been laughing in that maniacal way of mine when something happens that even I didn't expect, and can't seem to stop, making this a complete loss for spoken words, but typing doesn't involve the airways so this I can do. Uh, enough wasted space, heres what I really want to say:
Brian, that was the closest I've come to actual crying since my grandfather's funeral last year, with the time before that being my car accident, which was more of a screaming than crying. In fact, I think I've been out of my mind since that accident, but that has nothing to do with this, and I will probably erase this line tomorrow when I read it with a much clearer mind. Anyway, I'd have to say that that was the best piece of literature I've read in a long, long time. I don't want to give you a big head, so I'm going to say that it only almost surpasses Tolkien on a level of freshness and I'm willing to bet it will be a classic. This book was so good, I'm comparing it to Donny Darko in its ability to totally confuse my sense of what should be. I am now going to go about trying to force this book into the mainstream.

Wow, I can't remember the last time I've typed nearly incoherent babble.
Thank you for writing such a work of art that I can now say that my entire 8 hour drive to MegaCon is justified merely because I have 2 signed copies of it. On a side note, I sure hope that Beaner doesn't decide to take that 2 copy that he paid me before-hand for anytime soon...