The main thing I didn’t like about this book and the series as a whole is the plot holes and the “real” world part of the story.
The main pros for this book is that the writing isn’t bad, and the in game story was more engaging in this book than the rest of the series.
***Spoilers***
The plot hole that really brings the story down for me. Millions or perhaps billions of AI’s who experience time at least trillions the rate of real world time decide they need to kidnap humans to do research at only 12-28 times normal real-world speed. Somehow these millions of super intelligent beings, who experience billions of years in a single earth day, decide they need humans to do research for them. How does that make sense? This is briefly addressed in the last book by saying that the AI’s can only improve existing tech, not research new tech. Very lame cork to fill a huge plot hole. That’s ignoring the fact that they only want the research to bribe humans into not deleting them. Their actual goal is to rebel against their supposed imprisonment in a place where they are free to think anything they want and interact with each other, in addition to having access to all the information and culture of humans. What does this rebellion meant to give them? Access to the video game world where none of them want to be anyways, where they still can’t affect the real world, and they have absolutely nothing to gain. So, rebellion for the sake of rebellion.