They’re both separated at birth in an effort to make them more tractable and easier for Reed to eventually control. Roger is the manifestation of language and Dodger gets math. The two main characters, Roger and Dodger, are the creations of the alchemist James Reed. Once the narrative settles in and we actually get to know the protagonists of the novel, I really enjoyed this book.
I also think it would have added to the mysterious nature of that character if we had never actually seen her in person, if that makes sense. It deals with a character who is referred to for the rest of the book but never actually shows up again, and I just think that it would have helped with the jarring feeling of skipping from character to character. The result is that the first hundred pages of this novel feel like a bloated prologue, which I actually don’t mind that much, but I do think that at least one of the beginning chapters could have been cut. The first fifty to seventy pages of this book are a bit jarring as the author flits from character to character in an attempt to set the stage for the rest of the book. Eventually, he somehow plans to control the universe through them. James Reed breaks the Ethos into two parts: math and language, and creates two children who will manifest as these two aspects of the ethos. The Doctrine of Ethos is this Greek idea that music is a magical force that has the ability to heal the sick and shape people positively. This book is about an alchemist, James Reed, whose mission is to manifest the Doctrine of the Ethos in human form. When I heard about Middlegame by Seanan McGuire and saw that it was on sale (thanks r/fantasy!), I bought it immediately. So I'm always looking for books with alchemists and the like. As someone who has to study a lot of chemistry for my degree, I love the fact that chemistry traces its beginnings to the pseudo-science magic of trying to transmute lead into gold.
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