Dark, creative, and with some breath-taking action sequences, when this story hits it hits hard. I loved the first book in the series and was excited to see where the story went, and while I enjoyed the overall story and the new ideas and elements it introduced there were some stumbling blocks for me in getting there.
The characters continue to be interesting, though not particularly complicated. Each has one or two things that define them, and they tend to stick to those things. As a whole cast it is fun, but as individual characters they feel more like they exist to serve the narrative than to have complex inner journeys. Those inner journeys that do happen all feel well-trodden, with nothing particularly unexpected. The world-building expands, and I like the additions that are made, on Earth and in space. The writing is pretty heavy-handed and overly dramatic, written almost in a cinematic way. It isn’t subtle about anything, but it keeps a sense of tension and action through the story, even when there isn’t a lot going on. This is aided by the sections being quite short, sometimes only a paragraph, intended to be a kind of “quick cut” or stinger scene that ratchets up the readers’ suspense. The writing also makes the few action scenes quite delicious and fun, whether they be full-on military sci-fi space battles or have the feel of a horror-soaked video game. The writing is blunt and almost clunky, but it is endearing in its honesty and commitment to the audacity of this story, which needs writing to match.
What really pulled everything apart for me was the pacing. The story moves between two timelines, one immediately following the events of the last book and one a year earlier taking place at an archaeological dig in Antarctica. The novel starts with great action scenes, one in each location, and the energy is high right from the start. But then it fizzles out and the remainder of the first 60% of the book was just really slow. Not a whole lot of anything happened, certainly not enough to warrant the pages that brought us there. The real problem with the slow pacing is it exaggerated for me how thinly drawn some of the characters are, how often there are literal exposition dumps where one character sits a bunch of other characters down and just explains thigs at them, and how certain important story elements are remarkably convenient and deus-ex-machina-y. This is an unbelievable story already in the best kind of ways, but so many things happen that, even in this world, feel contrived, convenient, and unlikely. Here’s the thing… if the pacing was faster, and moved at a similar clip as the first novel in this series, then all of these small flaws can be easily glossed over because you’re having so much fun. Here the lackluster pacing made them all stand out and it didn’t do the story any favors. It made me think too much about the events being depicted and them become less and less likely (even given the sci-fi premise), and the characters’ actions became more and more out of narrative necessity than anything internally coherent or interesting. Cut half of the pages from that front half of the book, or add in another action set piece or two, and I wouldn’t have time to pick things apart. Once the two storylines converged at around 60% of the way in things picked up, though, and the story ends with some really exciting and tense set pieces that certainly outdo the earlier ones in the book, which were also good. A definite crescendo, in that regard.
I certainly still recommend this story. I had fun reading it, and the ideas in it are wild. Some of the attempts to bring in more philosophically heavy ideas felt unwieldy and not particularly sophisticated, but I appreciated them all the same, adding something to this story this isn’t always so explicit in this genre. The story has a lot of everything, from a wonderful imagining of elder and outer god mythology to wild technology and military squadrons to characters trying to survive in a physically and emotionally impossible environment to ghosts powering alien-mecha-kaijus to something literally called a God Machine. I like the over-the-top quality of the writing and the story, all the pieces work, somehow, which is impressive. The story ends with a tease for what could be a third book, and all complaints aside I am still interested enough to be on the lookout for that if it and when it comes around, so that tells you something.
I want to thank the author, the publisher Blackstone Publishing, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.