RANTS AND RAMBLES

• • DISCLAIMER: When I review books, weaknesses and inconsistencies tend to dominate my discussion; therefore, I will emphasize that any particular rant (and, yes, they can be long-winded) does not have special bearing on my unified opinion of the book. For this, please refer to my overall star rating. Additionally, this review is my personal opinion, intended to help like-minded readers navigate the plethora of available options. Use it as a tool but do not assign undue importance to it (i.e. feel free to disagree with me).
  • This book is the third in a series, so I have not belabored points already made previously. Please check out my reviews for Showdown and Saint if you want a more in-depth discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the series.
  • Ted seems stuck in time with his setting. It’s fine to set a novel 26 years in the future; however, it’s probably best to invent your own “pop culture” rather than borrowing from what you know is current. The idea that Todd Agnew would still have Amazing Grace on the radio prolifically enough that a non-Christian would hear it “spinning the dial” is ludicrous, especially since it’s not even true today (a mere 15 years after publication).
  • Ted seems to ascribe a single trait (two if he’s being generous) to some of his characters and assumes it is sufficient to carry them through the novel. A perfect example is Darcy and her vampire novels. Her affinity for this book series is not relevant to the plot, but it is constantly brought up, complete with the author’s name. In case you forgot from twenty pages earlier that she was reading these books, Ted tells you again so you can really visualize the scene. The worst part is not the inane detail or the repetition but the fact that it seems to be one of Darcy’s two defining traits. She, like many characters in the novel, is stagnant and goes stale very quickly. Character arcs are barely a thing.
  • Barely a Spoiler: Retconning is never a good sign and should generally be avoided. Unfortunately, Ted decided to fundamentally change the socioeconomic status of Paradise, the town where the trilogy begins and ends. In the first book, Paradise is characteristic of western towns formed during westward expansion and the gold rush. Bypassed by the highway, it is poor, forgotten, and struggling to survive. For the purposes of this book, however, Ted decided he wanted the same people to be affluent enough to easily take in and feed thousands of visitors, so Paradise is now wealthy due to a particularly good soil which grows the best apples in the world. So good they get exported to Japan. This is due to an event 30 years prior. Simple enough solution. Unfortunately, Showdown happened less than 20 years ago, and the town was dirt poor then. Sloppy continuity or sloppy retcon. Either way, it’s a lazy move.
  • Spoiler: My personal pet peeve is the inconsistency of the military in this novel. It is ludicrous to believe the American military would drop a thermobaric bomb on US soil. Granted, this is supposed to be a future dystopian-ish America, but a concern was brought up in the book as to the legitimacy of using military force on US soil at all, so many laws of today appear to still be en force. There appears to be an attempt at a “slippery slope” type regression of freedoms in this novel, but the jump from laws enforcing tolerance to the military committing war crimes against its own citizens is ludicrous and breaks the suspension of disbelief.
  • Major Spoiler: I love an unexpected and villainous twist as much as anyone, but the author needs to work for it if it is going to work. Ted wanted the twist but didn’t want to put in the work, so we get the entirely out of left field and entirely stupid betrayal by Kelly. The idea that she was written into existence by Black, the main villain, is in keeping with the lore of the series (such as it is), but there are still two massive problems with it. First, we learned in Saint that Kelly is a sentient human being with emotions and free will regardless of how she came to be. What happened to her free will so that she is now suddenly evil? The theological implications are stomach churning. Second, the whole situation is just a shortcut to a big twist which has no impact because it was not built up to or earned. The idea that the reader couldn’t know Kelly was evil because she herself didn’t know is insulting, dumb, lazy writing. Ted could have sprinkled clues through this novel and the previous one to better sell the twist, but he didn’t. This makes me suspect that this was not the original plan for Kelly’s character, meaning Ted is once again retconning, this time a central character.