Part 4, def fn: Call for Feedback

Thoughts to share on Meissa and Exclamation? Or the Egg and Utopia?

In the BASIC programming language, the command DEF FN defines a function that returns user-specified output, which depends on optional variables. In essence, using the command, you tell the computer to remember a particular mathematical formula, then to recall that formula later and apply it to the values the variables now have.

Each part of Quibble is titled after a BASIC command; the story somehow invokes that command. Quibble plays a logical game of “if then” with herself in part 1, and it leads her into heresy. In part 2, “gosub,” as they’re practicing adroitness, Nish tells Quibble, “Go toward more reality. Don’t substitute it with something less.” After she breaks Meissa’s orb in part 3, “for to,” Quibble says in a trance, “For to see the face is to know the person. For to know is to love.” And in part 4, now finished, Utopia asks Ankaa to define her function. Don’t feel bad if this nonsense was lost on you. It’s often subtle. At times while writing, I considered striking it altogether.

So, in part 4 we went to Egg 17, met Utopia, and got the story of the heretics Meissa and Claim, who were responsible for the creation of the cult of kindness, which Vega now leads. This was quite the interlude in the course of Quibble’s hectic, fateful day, which began when Alnasl kidnapped her. And that day still isn’t finished.

But what did you think of the interlude? Thoughts on Meissa and Claim? Or the Egg and Utopia? Feel free to share them!

How do you think “def fn,” all told, defines the function of the novel?

Up to this part, the language of the novel was not technical: its world had technology, but it treated the tech as an object of religion and even poetic mysticism. Utopia’s technical descriptions of the Egg were an abrupt departure from that. How did you feel about the change?

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