UnderTaker26 Burn this heretic!
Well, but tbh. SS indeed has those mentioned weaknesses (only technique circlejerking without much tension for loooong periods of times, family, ...).
I found myself unable to take anything in the Virtual Universe serious, except maybe as a tool for communication/shopping. For long periods of times it was just cringy.
But I don't think he is "evil". And literally everybody else (with enough wealth) has slaves. And to be honest the "slave system" makes it pretty okay. They don't get tortured or forced to do something, they 'simply' get manipulated to trust/love/worship/submit. The personality is not lost and doesn't suffer. Only the "1st priority" is the slave-owner. Slaves are pretty much the plot device for "free, happy and absolutely loyal workers".
It's good that his wife can't leave him... I believe in the first 10.000 years LF has spent less than 240 hours with her (like 30 workdays á 8h).
I wonder how romantic LF has to be offscreen so she loves him. As far as I know they didn't even talk more than 10-15 sentences since chapter 1.
Kinda sad that SS is still the best novel of IET for me.