Forget this book, let's talk about Early Modern English!

-It's nice that they have a traveling acting troupe in the post-apocalypse.

-I hope Jeeves died. Not because I dislike him, but because it would be narratively interesting. We get to learn about a person: their past, their hopes and dreams, their struggles... only for their story to be cut-short by the virus.

-The farther we get from Shakespeare's time the more incomprehensible plays of that time become. "The safer sense will ne'er accommodate his master thus"?? What does "thus" mean in this context? In modern English it's used like "[cause] thus [effect]," you don't just end a sentence with it! And even if thus wasn't there to muck-up the whole line, what does it mean for a safer sense to not accommodate something? My best guess on what "safer sense" means is caution. Like, "Oh I would go play on the highway but I have a safer sense for that." or something. Does this mean that the person doesn't think cautiously when it comes to their master? But the line uses a definite article to describe the safer sense, is it a universal caution like common sense? Was this message just "his master doesn't have common sense" wrapped in linguistic puzzlery? I don't even know!

-That being said, trying to decipher the ye olden prose was pretty fun. And if my interpretation is accurate to the message being conveyed, then that's some pretty cool wording, and I can understand why these plays continue to be classics to this day.

-"No, they cannot touch me for coining" possibly a way of saying that you won't give people money?

-"Thou side-piercing sight!" I've heard of a piercing gaze, but the specification of a side-piercing one specifically is throwing me for a loop.

-Are military orchestras a thing? How whimsically decadent!

-I don't know if this is post-apocalypse superstition or if the writer genuinely doesn't know this, but the internet has to be actively maintained, it's not something you can "find" after 20 years of no maintenance.

-I might be missing something, but "Alexandra had been enraptured, the screen a magical thing with no memories attached." seems blatantly grammatically incorrect.

-I wonder if Arthur's son is alive and we'll meet him at some point.

-OHOHOHO! Title drop! I bet those comics will be important to the story. You don't just name your book after in-universe media and have that media be irrelevant to the story!

-I wonder why chapter 8 was written in present-tense, it felt off.

-I hope this book doesn't expect me to remember the names/numbers of all these orchestra players. Because that is NOT happening. That said, I'm fond of the 7th guitar just based on his introduction.

-"although someone -probably Sayid- had written 'Sartre: Hell is other people' in pen inside one of the caravans, and someone else had scratched out 'other people' and substituted 'flutes.'" is a good line. humorously petty/tribalistic.

-uh oh spaghettios, if "prophet" is anything to go by, it seems the symphony's found themselves in cult territory.

-"Your friend rejected the prophet's advances," is a good line. raises a lot of alarms with minimal information.

-"She said they'd left? Are you sure that's what she said?" oh dear, Charlie and her boyfriend got murdered by the cult, didn't they?

-"It speaks!" Oh Dieter, what a card you are.

-"How could we have left them here?" Well, to be fair, Lin, the town wasn't a spooky mysterious cult-town last time y'all were there.

-Shakespeare's son was named HAMNET?!

-uh oh, looks like the prophet's about to give a sermon.

-"Something in his tone made Kristen want to run, a suggestion of a trapdoor waiting under every word" I feel the exact same. Just waiting for the prophet to bring up human sacrifice, or accuse the troupe of being heretics. Narratively speaking, there is no way this ends well.

-the prophet doesn't know how to do math. If 99.99% of people died, then there would be one person out of 10,000 who survived, not one in 250 or 300.

-the prophet is talking about preparations they must make for the end of the world?? the end of the world already happened. It was the apocalypse, you can't get much more "end-of-the-world" than that!

-well, the sermon ended without mention of witch-trials, which is good.

-I honestly was not expecting that they would exit the town without serious conflict. Consider my expectations defied.

1: The two quotes I'll pull are "Your friend rejected the prophet's advances," and "Something in his tone made Kristen want to run, a suggestion of a trapdoor waiting under every word."
The former because it's an immediate and large red-flag with very little explicit context. The midwife doesn't even say "our prophet," she says "the prophet." He's such an established presence for the townsfolk that they casually speak as though everyone already knows who he is. Furthermore, the fact that he's called a "prophet" immediately tells you EXACTLY what's up with this town with only one word.
The Latter I chose because I felt exactly like Kristen in that moment. I've seen enough media to know that this situation with a seemingly affable leader giving a speech almost always turns towards them talking about "corruption" or "saboteurs" or "heretics" before eventually pointing to the protagonists and rallying the crowd against them. (although this didn't end up happening).

2: I think the "survival is insufficient" motto fits the troupe because what they do (put on shows/play music) isn't necessary for survival, it's entertainment/culture. Fulfilling a requirement for the soul rather than the body. It's the difference between "surviving" and "living."

2.5: I don't actually know the plot of Midsummer Night's Dream, but from what I could parse of the early-modern English, it seems to have themes of infidelity, possibly? Which is a commonality between the characters in the play and Kristen, who cheated on her boyfriend out of boredom.

3: For Kristen specifically, life hasn't changed much, considering she doesn't even remember what life was like before it. As far as she's concerned, this is all she's ever known.

4: His reputation precedes him. Honestly I thought (and kinda hoped) that he would be worse than he is. Him treating brides like gifts to be given for diplomatic purposes definitely points to him being an awful dude, but he lets the troupe go without a fuss, which I feel kinda robs us of a payoff to him and the town being all unnerving.