Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-1272640-20161224011639/@comment-1506468-20161224093629

The sequence shouldn't be deemed invalid. Like a great many other novels, it contains material that doesn't fit with other sources. I read the novel earlier this year and I don't even think the whole "dream" argument stands up anyway; Adric has these same sequences and seems to relate to them like he was revisiting old memories. I think the main problem with the Divided Loyalties stuff is that people simply don't like the novel, and what is contained within it; which sadly is not enough reason to shun it from what we cover on the wiki. The back of the novel even contains a chapter on what has happened to all of the Deca since the flashback sequence, relating to the reader the events of some of the New Adventures and PDAs that they subsequently appeared in. That says to me that Gary Russell also sees the sequence as actually have happened.