I am a big fan of the series despite the author throwing more and more mystery with very little pay off each book. But this one has been the absolute worst. The gods banter could have all been removed without losing anything. our character motivation just doesn’t make sense anymore. the author continually uses Money as the main driving force for several of the different characters and the actions taken lead directly to a loss of all revenue.
The pacing of the book is pretty poor with a single “Did we become best friends?” moment strait out of step brothers the real villain in the climax just doesn’t make sense at all and feels like the worst case of Deus Ex Machina since Jasons power creep reset how ever many books ago.
Not sure if I will pick up book 10 when it comes out I think this story might be done for me. I will say my favorite part of the whole series is the on going argument over the stance on in game NPC characters on if they are “real” or not and how they should be treated.