TM

Non Moriamur

Rating

9/10 First, a little bit of context: It’s early 2026 and I am working as an AI Lead at a small consultancy in Brussels. One of my co-workers approaches me with a personal but AI-related question. He tells me he has, finally, after a decade, finished a historical novel, that has quite a complicated plot, and he would like to use AI to validate that all the logic is sound. The book is some 130,000 words long so he wants an advice on how to do this given the limited context window of current LLMs. I give him some advice but also tell him that I am a semi-avid reader and if he would like I would be more than happy to give his book a read. So he sent over a Google Doc, I converted it to EPUB, read it, and now we are here.

I really don’t have much to comment in terms of “suggestions for improvement”. Since I am giving it a 9/10, I’m rather impressed with the quality of both the writing and the storytelling. To me it was an authentically written book with a unique storyline, it’s own style of expression, and a super flowery vocabulary. Really a pleasure to read as I was enjoying both the substance and the presentation. I’m only subtracting a point because for my taste it was a little too long and the punchline explanation of the main mystery was a little weakly developed - aka the climax was a bit underwhelming. Other than that, I’m impressed and I honestly wish some publisher will think the same. Then I hope the book will find its readership and my colleague can quit being a boring consultant. All fingers crossed Killian!

Synopsis

A mysterious force awakens all the statues in the Lomic Empire and drives them to kill and ravage its villages and towns for years before they are defeated by the queen Simura’s army. Queen Simura was warn of this as a kid but didn’t expect it to happen in her lifetime. Now that the war is over, it’s time for her to retire and give reign over the empire to her son. The problem is that she is a Derrendii and Derrendii do not die. Derrendii go to a hidden mausoleum in the woods and turn themselves into statues that live in the mausoleum forever. But they do so because they have a higher purpose, they are fulfilling a prophecy that will eventually safe the world from an apocalypse - or will it? And what’s the apocalypse about?

Notes

  • “Very few breathing people in the near future will be able to explain the reality of their life-experience with any truth to their words. Legends will be born in the tales of the horrors survivors will tell to their children. Regrettably, if we are to learn anything from history, then it is that we are doomed to forget those wisdoms we have gathered again, and consider our own legends naught but myths of a primitive set of ancestors. The cycle of human knowledge is that we inevitably forget. And even that which we record is eventually questioned, reworded by morphing language, and lost to the ravages of time.”
    • this hit hard because it seems that our global society is plunging back into war and mutual distraction. So the line on us being forever doomed to forget the wisdoms of history hits particularly close to home.
  • there’s a pretty big power struggle between the main character of the book, queen Simura, and her great-great-great-great-great grandfather, the originator of the Derrendii lineage, old Derrendus. At first the whole dynamic between the two feels quite childish and ego driven. But at the end it turns out to originate from a suspicion that the old chap is lying to all of them about the true origin of the prophecy that they are fulfilling. Which is a nice twist, since initially I felt quite some frustration about the two, but eventually I grew to appreciate Simura’s angry disposition.
  • “There were some heated discussions, but with Gerrus’ happiness, the last two years had lightened even those substantial disagreements to the kind of happy arguments that bring friends closer.wish that happiness could infect me more than it has. Perhaps I have the memory of the white army too harshly in mind.”
    • this quote comes from a passage when a new member joined the mausoleum. He is different than the rest. He laughs a lot and brings new energy into the place. But Simura wonders why she cannot be infected with his happiness like others can. Maybe it’s because she saw the evil that others haven’t while fighting the White Army.
    • At that point I wondered if I have the same with cancer. Going through a year of chemo at only 23 years old certainly left a mark. I’m glad I am alive as I there are many interests I’d like to continue working on and experiencing but I also feel like the happiness spark is that much harder to set alight again. I’m gloomy, unless I am consumed in some meaningful activity, I see most things as futile and unimportant in the face of random cell mutations that can end your life at any point in time, whether that’s because of your lifestyle, environment you live in, or simply a random chance. So I go around, thinking of the meaning of this existence, in the face of random and non-random evil that exists, and I often find it hard to be jolly. But maybe the cancer has nothing to do with it, maybe it’s just the brain chemistry I was given and nurtured through out the two decades I have so far had on this rock going around a random star…
  • I really enjoyed the second chapter titled Foreword to: The Results of Means, such a good reflection on the impossibility to test counterfactuals in the real world. You always have many options, but there will always be just one outcome, and so you can wonder if you could have done something differently, or the tapestry of life would simply fill your role by someone else, and the result would still be the same. The butterfly effect. Kind of.
  • “Time is an illusion. Time spent waiting triply so. The illusion encompasses everything when you wait. And the longer you wait, the further the thing you wait for appears.”
    • damn true… no further comment, just well said.
  • “To me it now means that even the evilest of deeds is done by people believing they are doing the right thing for the right reasons.”
    • again, hits hard given that Trump and Netanyahu just decided to bomb Iran pretty much for no defendable reason… and yet they are probably content and truly believing they are doing the right thing.
  • “Perhaps that is all we humans truly can do when it comes to history. We watch it happen, and we sometimes record its passing. But at the advent of the apocalypse, perhaps all we truly can say is:In the end, I was here.”
    • shit, another truth for the times we live in, or for any times, but feels extra appropriate for the current times.

In gloria, in pace Mendacia in lapide Non moriamur. Surgite defensio domus Surgite ad expellendos daemones Cavete Invasorem.

Exspectate nos!