Of particular note are the text portions that made up a large part of the third book of the novel, Reads, and especially what was the last issue making up that book—issue #186, in which Sim speaks to the reader in the first person about his ideas on gender.
His writing in that issue about the "Male Light" and the "Female Void" have earned Sim a reputation as a misogynist and lost him numerous readers.
[citation needed] Cerebus, who had twice been Prime Minister of the city-state of Iest (first in High Society) and then all-powerful Pope, had fallen from grace at the end of Church & State.
Cerebus comes out of the near-catatonic state in which he had spent the duration of Melmoth when he hears of Jaka's ill-treatment at the hands of the Cirinists.
When word reaches Cirin, who is busily having books burned, she dispatches her army and has the rebellion brutally crushed, but before they can capture Cerebus, he disappears.
[1] Artemis, with Elrod as his sidekick, also stages his own impromptu revolution under his new persona "PunisherRoach", a parody of the Marvel comics character The Punisher, armed with pearl-handled semi-automatic crossbows.
Punisherroach plows through the Cirinists before Elrod leads him to a brothel, where he falls for a prostitute named Blossom, which calms him down somewhat.
[1] Mrs. Thatcher and Mrs. Kopp (a parody of former Canadian Member of Parliament Sheila Copps) each try to take control of Cirinist power.
The series moves from this storyline to a long essay attributed to Viktor Davis, a fictional Reads author.
After a period of penance and self-reflection on Pluto, Cerebus asks "Dave" to place him in a bar he remembers from his mercenary days.
The text from this particular issue speaks directly about real-world events (rather than the Cerebus story-line) and involvement of men versus women.
'Viktor' offers that many modern problems are worsening by the influence of women, specifically their alleged tendency to take important decisions based on emotions rather than intellectual reasoning.