She is a child or a few thousand years old. Would it even matter?
-- Narrator (Visitations)

Importance: This narration describes Mai and sets up the ominous tone for the novel. How, after all, can one be different ages at the same time? And why does it not matter? Only later does Sudbanthad answer these questions, and when he does, he speaks to his vision of a technologically savvy world that has transcended both space and time.

He has long known that a song can make a man feel like he's the luckiest being alive or help him smother his loneliness, or, if it's in the mood, retrieve to him, with its lengthy reach, times he didn't even know he'd let sink to the murky bottom.
-- Narrator ("Cadence")

Importance: Music has a tremendous effect on the characters in the novel. In the narrative, it serves as a romantic glue, suicidal antidote, and companion to lonely nights. For...