I’m sad to say that after 7 books, I’m giving up on this series. I used to love the concept and it was well executed for most of the previous 6 books. I bought into Jason’s story’s, his friends and his girlfriend were characters I was interested in. I love his necromancer concept and its evolution.
The introduction of, or more accurately, complete substitution of Jason by boring Girl Boss archetype Arcadia Landrey not only ruined this book, it ended the series for me. Take a lesson from Disney Marvel, no one wants this tired, politically motivated, cookie-cutter, lead character swap cliché for the empowered female cringe character (please watch the Panderverse from Southpark if you didn’t understand this). As an author, Travis Bagwell, should know this already.
Additionally, not only do I have zero interest in Arcadia Landrey and her boring storyline, time travel was so poorly implemented in this book, with a hideous plot armor (save point) that made the entire premise useless and also erased two thirds of the book (and made the rest irrelevant).
Finally, making George Lane into a caricature of a villain is so weak and boring, I have almost no energy to criticize it. He was already the bad guy, everyone knew, the author was not subtle. However, making him into a Saturday Morning cartoon villain was pathetic.
Finally, I’m a BJJ practitioner for over 3 decades, but you don’t need my experience to know that little girls can’t beat up or submit big men in real-life (especially experienced fighters, who happen to be much stronger). In the game, with magic and superpowers, it’s cool and part of the premise, outside of the game it is ridiculous.
Please do some research about grappling and submission martial arts before your write. What Julia did in the fight club was laughable and completely breaks immersion and ruins the book by itself. Not only was the doubly enhanced Alex far heaver and much stronger, he had the same advantages she had (regarding AO enhancements) and any enhancements his father decided to build in. Additionally, he has THE most important thing in any fight, experience. Julia had close to ZERO and Alex had dozens of fights at the fight club (I think it was something like 50 or 60 fights).
I wish the author much luck and some basic common sense in his next series. Stay away from political messaging in books meant to be an ESCAPE.