Patrick
Damn this one was much better than I was expecting it to be. Since Carl wasn't the deckmaster and didn't have to rack his brain on all the possibilities of the cards, strats, etc, it gave Carl room to breathe. I think that was desperately needed since there's now, at minimum, 3+ moving parts in every plot point. This book feels like the start of the actual plot that's going to take place in the final installations of the series. The pacing was great on this one imo. That part when you find out Bea hid Carl's half-brother away from him is crazy. Actually made me feel ire which is p rare in a book with a talking sex-doll head. Speaking of which, Samantha's mother cursing bit went from overplayed back to funny again. My only fruitless gripe is that the author still never puts Carl in a situation where he has to be the bad guy. I thought it would happen with Sister Ines and Paz but nope! You find out Sister is actually a psychopath so Carl's decision to betray them wasn't actually all that bad... a similar moment: 1 door left on the floor, Carl and Ren's team are the only left. Carl's going to have to kill another crawler to progress to the next level... Nope! Ren kills herself! See what I mean? Wonder when the plot armor is suddenly going to strip and I'll actually fear what'll happen next. Anyways, Raul's beach scene was the funniest shit I've read in this series so far.
Damn this one was much better than I was expecting it to be. Since Carl wasn't the deckmaster and didn't have to rack his brain on all the possibilities of the cards, strats, etc, it gave Carl room to breathe. I think that was desperately needed since there's now, at minimum, 3+ moving parts in every plot point. This book feels like the start of the actual plot that's going to take place in the final installations of the series. The pacing was great on this one imo. That part when you find out Bea hid Carl's half-brother away from him is crazy. Actually made me feel ire which is p rare in a book with a talking sex-doll head. Speaking of which, Samantha's mother cursing bit went from overplayed back to funny again. My only fruitless gripe is that the author still never puts Carl in a situation where he has to be the bad guy. I thought it would happen with Sister Ines and Paz but nope! You find out Sister is actually a psychopath so Carl's decision to betray them wasn't actually all that bad... a similar moment: 1 door left on the floor, Carl and Ren's team are the only left. Carl's going to have to kill another crawler to progress to the next level... Nope! Ren kills herself! See what I mean? Wonder when the plot armor is suddenly going to strip and I'll actually fear what'll happen next. Anyways, Raul's beach scene was the funniest shit I've read in this series so far.