altlovesbooks
I didn't like this one as much as the other two, but appreciate the conclusion/closure.
Part of this had to do with the drastic-feeling change in tone from the first two books. While the first two sat comfortably in sci-fi, almost cyberpunkian mystery with our unnamed synesthete protagonist, this one felt more....I don't even know. Techno-thriller? There's not a lot of mystery here beyond trying to figure out motives, and this book manages to blast past sci-fi and wrap all the way around to fantasy with literal dragons, krakens, and mythical creatures from various cultures showing up (albeit created by technology). It's very fast-paced, and our POV character doesn't seem to do a great job at keeping us in the loop as to what's going on.
Which leads me to the other reason I didn't like this one, the POV character. This book changes POV characters entirely, so we're now sitting in the daughter, Ascalon's, head. She's perfectly acceptable as a POV, but for her to be the exclusive POV in this book made me a bit disappointed. It's drilled into the reader throughout the entire book about how awesome she is at everything (and she even gets more awesome as the book goes on), so the stakes feel especially low in a book where everything should be ramping up. I think I would have appreciated maybe a dual POV including the synesthete, because it felt like Ascalon hit the end of the book along with us and had no more idea what was going on than we did.
I did really like the fleshing out of the Leachateans, their ad-speak and way of life. Their city names, also, were pretty great.
I'm glad to have finished the series though! This was really unique, and despite my hangups in this book, it still kept me reading and interested, so that's something.
I didn't like this one as much as the other two, but appreciate the conclusion/closure.
Part of this had to do with the drastic-feeling change in tone from the first two books. While the first two sat comfortably in sci-fi, almost cyberpunkian mystery with our unnamed synesthete protagonist, this one felt more....I don't even know. Techno-thriller? There's not a lot of mystery here beyond trying to figure out motives, and this book manages to blast past sci-fi and wrap all the way around to fantasy with literal dragons, krakens, and mythical creatures from various cultures showing up (albeit created by technology). It's very fast-paced, and our POV character doesn't seem to do a great job at keeping us in the loop as to what's going on.
Which leads me to the other reason I didn't like this one, the POV character. This book changes POV characters entirely, so we're now sitting in the daughter, Ascalon's, head. She's perfectly acceptable as a POV, but for her to be the exclusive POV in this book made me a bit disappointed. It's drilled into the reader throughout the entire book about how awesome she is at everything (and she even gets more awesome as the book goes on), so the stakes feel especially low in a book where everything should be ramping up. I think I would have appreciated maybe a dual POV including the synesthete, because it felt like Ascalon hit the end of the book along with us and had no more idea what was going on than we did.
I did really like the fleshing out of the Leachateans, their ad-speak and way of life. Their city names, also, were pretty great.
I'm glad to have finished the series though! This was really unique, and despite my hangups in this book, it still kept me reading and interested, so that's something.