Nick died while eating a candy bar and arrived in Everlost with a chocolate smear on his mouth. In Everlost, Afterlights tend to forget much of who they were when they were alive and they gradually take on the characteristics of what they do remember. I love to hate Mary! On the other hand, Nick suffers for his altruism. Mary Hightower is a truly wonderful creation: beautiful, serene and outwardly kindly, but underneath it all she's the most delicious of sociopaths - utterly corrupted by power and with a core of true evil. Both venture to the margins of Everlost - Everwild - to raise armies of Afterlights, while Allie continues the search for her family and learns a great deal more about skinjacking.Īnd I loved it! The overlying narrative is pacy and tense, but the tension is punctuated by some wonderful slapstick humour, superb satire and umpteen clever pop-culture references. Everwild takes up shortly after the previous climax and it's clear from the get-go that a bigger confrontation is unavoidable. The first book built up to and ended in the inevitable stand-off between Mary and Nick but it wasn't completely final, and several subplots remained unanswered. All Allie wants is to find her family and tell them that she's ok - after that, she thinks she'll be able to take her coin and move on. Allie (the Outcast) is a skinjacker - she can possess and inhabit the bodies of the living. He wants all Afterlights to find their way to their originally intended destination. Nick - the Chocolate Ogre - disagrees and he roams Everlost with a bucket containing coins that provide passage into the light. Mary thinks Everlost is a wonderful place and she "saves" the Afterlights she finds by giving them repetitive but addictive tasks to fill eternity. Mary Hightower, for instance, is so-called because she took up residence in New York in the Twin Towers. Adults never make it there, but significant or much-loved objects and buildings sometimes do. Early 2024: decision from the FTC administrative law judge.Neal Shusterman continues his part zany adventure, part philosophical enquiry, and part coming-of-age story that began with Everlost in this follow-up that is perhaps even better than its predecessor.Įverlost is a kind of limbo and home to children - Afterlights - who have died, but somehow missed the tunnel and the light - wherever and whatever the light actually is. August 2nd 2023: beginning of the FTC in-house trial. If MS quits by that date they have to pay a termination fee of $3,000,000,000 if they don't, they'll have to renegotiate the outside date with ABK. July 18th 2023: The end of the second extension and final outside date in the merger agreement. May 22nd 2023: final decision from the EC. April - May 2023: decision from the SAMR in China. April 28th 2023: decision from New Zealand. April 26th 2023: final report and remedies from the CMA. If MS quits by that date they have to pay a termination fee of $2,500,000,000 if they don't, the outside date gets extended until July 18th 2023. April 18th 2023: second extension of the original outside date. April 10th 2023: the Canada Competition Bureau will update the list of merger reviews completed during the previous month (probably nothing will come out of it, but my guess is that sooner rather than later there will be a decision). Early April 2023: the EC will assess the market test conducted for the remedies proposed by MS. Early April 2023: meetings and discussions with the CMA regarding the remedies working paper. This is also speculation, not actual news, but eh.Īnd these are the next expected event dates, as per Idas again. I wouldn't say Xbox/Microsoft turns everything to sh:#, just that the following critical/commercial success of acquired IPs - after acquisition - don't seem to go up or stay the same for too long, other than maybe Minecraft IMO.Īverage critical success for the other companies like Steam, Apple, Google would be a vast improvement, so Microsoft do deserve credit for trying much harder and achieving far more on that front IMHO, but it is still far less than the failed Sega used to deliver, and far less than a Konami used to put out yearly, and still way below EA, ABK and T2's efforts IMO. In the high end console space we need companies that are exceptional at game development and cultivating exceptional talent when acquiring, rather than a company focused on a next-gen store to sell whatever 3rd parties say is the level of excellence. Click to expand.in Xbox's (Microsoft's) defence, they are looking at Apple, Google and Steam, and concluding that none of those companies need to do anything specifically in gaming really well for their 30%, which for me is exactly why I'm against this acquisition.
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