I have really enjoyed this series so far, but I did NOT enjoy this book. With the prior books in the series Glynn Stewart has earned my trust enough for ONE book in the series like this. Throughout the entire book the main character is always a step behind the bad guys. He keeps getting beaten up (figuratively and literally at times), and he can’t get a “win” to save his life. You keep expecting him to finally have a “win” throughout this book, but it NEVER happens (the ending is only a half win, and that is being generous). Part of the reason I read sci-fi books like this is for a break from how depressing the real world can be, and so this book wasn’t very helpful with that.
I have a few problems with this book:
1. The statistical improbability of so many bad things happening to the main character, or things the main character can’t stop. Yes, the bad guys have a lot of knowledge that the good guys don’t which gives them an advantage, but how many times can you show up a few minutes too late. The one that pushed me over the top was when the “last person who knew the truth” (who the bad guys didn’t even know existed) died as a result of some completely unrelated politicians goals who just so happened to attack the main character at the meeting giving the other bad guys an opportunity to kill the “last person who knew the truth.”
2. The main character and his helpers acted incredibly stupid during certain aspects of the investigation. I understand taking the first lead or two of an investigation casually, but once those leads fall apart because your enemy is clearly ahead of you and has infiltrated your government I would expect you to by much more careful after that. There were multiple times throughout the book during an action scene when the main character would walk into a room for a fight (he knew he was going into), but then he would let someone he wanted to protect die before he could act. I can imagine that you might be shocked or surprised into hesitating once, but not in multiple fights against the same enemy. When you go into a fight when you have the element of surprise (and the amount of power the MC has), and your enemy has time to see you and act before you can that is a bit hard to stomach. After I was too late a number of times to save someone I think I would stop leaning towards hesitation and instead lean towards acting too quickly. In other words, after enough stuff happens you would expect the main character to start “always double tapping” (to quote Zombieland), and assuming the worst about the enemy before the fight starts.
3. Honestly, this book felt a bit like emotional manipulation. The author gets your hopes up, then dashes them, gets them up, dashes them, and it continued until the end of the book. Modern culture seems to think this makes books and movies good by being “unpredictable” (Game of Thrones did this kind of emotional roller-coaster all the time, and as a result I was surprised people liked it so much). I do not enjoy this kind of emotional manipulation.
4. ******Spoiler******** The main character gets crippled at the end of the book limiting his power in the future. ******Spoiler******** Part of what made this books series fun was how intelligent and overpowered the main character was. I’m concerned the author will fall into the trap of many authors who feel they have to “nerf” an overpowered main character. I have seen it in a number of books (For example, in the Sword of Truth Series, every book creates a reason Richard can’t use his gift). I haven’t read past this book so I don’t know how much the author will “nerf” the main character in the future, or if it will be permanent. So, while this is a concern, I don’t know if it is valid or not since I have not read the next books.
HOWEVER, I have really enjoyed this book series so far, and I believe Glynn Stewart is an excellent author. I can also acknowledge that the main character has to go through some adversity to grow, and characters who don’t ever struggle aren’t interesting. With the prior books in the series Glynn Stewart has earned my trust enough for one book in the series like this. So, I will count this entire book as adversity for the sake of character development. I’m planning to read the next books, but I really hope the author lets the main character have a “win” occasionally in the future books. I don’t like feeling more depressed after reading a sci-fi book then when I started reading it.