Post-Self book I - Qoheleth

“All artists search. I search for stories, in this post-self age. What happens when you can no longer call yourself an individual, when you have split your sense of self among several instances? How do you react? Do you withdraw into yourself, become a hermit? Do you expand until you lose all sense of identity? Do you fragment? Do you go about it deliberately, or do you let nature and chance take their course?”

With immersive technology at its peak, it's all too easy to get lost. When RJ loses emself in that virtual world, not only must ey find eir way out, but find all the answers ey can along the way.

And, nearly a century on, society still struggles the the ramifications of those answers.

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Also featuring Gallery Exhibition, a love story.

A note on ordering

Over the years, my feelings on Qoheleth have changed dramatically. The book remains quite meaningful to me, just as it does to others, but as the Cycle came to a conclusion, its place as the first book in the series came into doubt in my mind. The role of the book is essentially that of a prequel, rather than the first. It would be as valid to start with Toledot and then read Qoheleth as the other way around.

That said, there are a few tropes that rely on surprise — a red-herring or two, some obfuscation, and so on — that would absolutely be spoiled by reading Toledot first. Addressing these problems in Toledot by obfuscating them there as well would be a task too large for me right now. Additionally, the order in which you read the books will change how you view a set of characters, either softening opinions or hardening them. I propose two options for you, the reader:

• Read Qoheleth first, in the order the books were written, with the understanding of its nature as a prequel rather than a first entry in a tetralogy.
• Read Toledot first with the understanding that the knowledge gained in the process of reading it will undermine various plot hooks that surround reveals in Qoheleth.

Whichever way you choose, I do hope that you will enjoy, and if you want a simple introduction to the setting, you can safely begin with "Gallery Exhibition"