i thought the religious debate would be a one-time thing and we'd move away from it, but in this volume Sanderson again tries to reconcile faith and rationality. that's not something bad per se, but his corny attempt makes it obvious the struggle is his and not the main character's, whose speech on the subject is so unnaturally delivered with its cheap metaphysics ("oh i don't believe in god, but i do believe in infinity". bitch you're about to be shot in the head) it turns the most dangerous situation of the story in a self-help book chapter. that comes after the protagonist is abruptly separated from his hallucinations — entities or "aspects" he summons after learning a subject by just flipping through the pages of a book bc he's that smart. they being his receptacles of knowledge even for social interactions, the separation opens a lot of possibilities to discuss his condition that are never explored as they should due to the author's little "philosophical" moment and to limitations of format, since this is just a novella. the aspects' nature, my favorite part of the book, is better explained here, yet i still find it contradictory: if they're supposed to know only what their creator knows, why are there instances when they see what Stephen isn't looking at and are even ordered to "keep watch"? as for Stephen himself, he confesses to being "a rather bland man in his thirties" and that "the aspects have all the character", and i agree (except for the fact he comes off like a man in his twenties not thirties). however, there's not much to the aspects' said character: while i like Tobias' oldman aura and Aubrey's self-awareness, every time Ivy exclaims "language!" like a broken record is a reminder she didn't bat an eye to JC's racist comment in the first volume beyond asking why do they keep him around (just to get caught kissing him afterward), and his "can i shot them?" line was already annoying in the previous novella. a butler completes the main cast, only you tend to forget him when he isn't calling his employer "master" as if they're both starring in a new Batman movie. the mystery and sci-fi plotlines are also better woven this time, although the holes and amateur mistakes eventually appear —the biggest of the first being a professional assassin suddenly starting to believe in ghost stories so she can conveniently miss a shot at our man— and everything is wrapped up by an anticlimactic resolution with little to no feeling of fear or tension throughout it. despite all that, the last volume is in my plans for this week; i'm already here, might as well finally discover what's up with this guy's mind.