This book does as well as the first with world building, overal plot development, etc. I feel as though character development received much less thought, however. This honestly made much of the book a more difficult listen for me. From the very beginning of this book, Jack changes like a light switch to being far far less likeable. All of a sudden he becomes much more like someone who wants to watch the world burn and treats people, both in game and out, like chess pieces to use and discard. Other major characters seem to have mostly halted in their development. There are some small exceptions to this, but overall almost everyone starts to feel more like automatons than people. My hope is that this is something consciously done to highlight Jack’s series-wide development, but there’s no way to tell for now.
Narration by JH is, as always, fantastic. JH and the SBT crew are masters of this craft and their performances always add more to the story.