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The Singularity War #3
Warrior: Embraced: The Singularity War, Book 3
On the run to the red planet...
Brandt Wills tried to prevent a final cataclysmic war between Terra and Luna. He failed, but he was able to escape Singularity’s clutches, fleeing with the genetic experiment known as Psyche in an alien ship. They’re going to Mars - to where everything started - to finish Singularity once and for all.
The War Planet is where Singularity uncovered an alien mothership in Ophir Chasma, and the technology they unearthed is at the dark heart of the evil corporation. And, even though the war between Terra and Luna may be over, the fighting’s just begun for dominance in the Solar System. All the planets want a piece of Brandt and the alien technology inside him.
Weird Venusian bio-constructs are on the way to Mars, along with the computerized cyborgs of Saturn and the genetically modified super-people of Jupiter. Every world is sending their forces to Mars, and the red planet will soon run with blood. Brandt has a head start on them, though, but will it be enough? Will he finally be able to unlock the mysteries of the alien symbiont - and the ship in which he rides - or will he ultimately be captured and become a science experiment for Singularity or one of the planets?
Brandt Wills tried to prevent a final cataclysmic war between Terra and Luna. He failed, but he was able to escape Singularity’s clutches, fleeing with the genetic experiment known as Psyche in an alien ship. They’re going to Mars - to where everything started - to finish Singularity once and for all.
The War Planet is where Singularity uncovered an alien mothership in Ophir Chasma, and the technology they unearthed is at the dark heart of the evil corporation. And, even though the war between Terra and Luna may be over, the fighting’s just begun for dominance in the Solar System. All the planets want a piece of Brandt and the alien technology inside him.
Weird Venusian bio-constructs are on the way to Mars, along with the computerized cyborgs of Saturn and the genetically modified super-people of Jupiter. Every world is sending their forces to Mars, and the red planet will soon run with blood. Brandt has a head start on them, though, but will it be enough? Will he finally be able to unlock the mysteries of the alien symbiont - and the ship in which he rides - or will he ultimately be captured and become a science experiment for Singularity or one of the planets?
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Published January 27, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 30, 2021
TL;DR Poor character writing, inconsistent world building, and increasingly incoherent plot held up by solid action sequences alone. A series steadily descending into mediocrity since book 1's solid showing.
This series started off as a solid 4.5 stars for me. The action was great. But the weakness was character interaction. The author's bio claims that he's had a fascinating study of the human species through his various service industry jobs. But the character interactions in this series have been increasingly superficial. It was sub-par in book 1 - - barely adequate. Now it is virtually nonexistent. The only character who was even remotely developed is the MC. Virtually everyone else are cardboard cutouts a with few lines and no personality - - relying instead on the audience to assume a very shallow archetype based on context. Even his two female Companions - - one, a digital imprint of his ex lover, and another an escaped Genetically engineered psychic experiment - - barely get any lines. Worse, when they do get lines, their dialogue is stilted, and their motivations seem contradictory.
For example, in an earlier book, the ex-lover was a criminal mob boss that was successful and highly feared. Yet she threw a hissy fit in the MC's head when he insulted Lunar people for being tall, skinny, and unused to open spaces while trying to talk his way out of a gun fight with a bunch of terrans. Like seriously. Someone with a background that requires such a high level of scheming and social manipulation have known what the MC was doing - - especially since, by that time, she had been digitized and no longer even had a body to be insulted about. Yet she threw a tantrum and gave the MC the silent treatment during a life and death altercation.
Such instances of poor or inconsistent character writing for everyone other than the MC has only gotten worse in this book. Especially with the addition of an additional female sidekick, the drastic decrease in lines and personality of the previoussidekick, and the non-interaction between the two sidekicks. I won't spoil it, but neither really feel like people. Just town NPCs in a video game. Heck, Sharron, his digitized ex, might as well be the thing that generates menu descriptions in a video game, with even less personality than an npc, now.
On top of that, the author appears to be having a hard time keeping his own world building straight as the series carries on. For example, in book one, the author appeared to be attempting to create a believable world based on realistic science, physics, etc. He derided a bunch of Hollywood tropes. For example, one of his characters called the whole climbing through vent thing a product of whatever their equivalent of tv-dramas was, before saying the vents were 10 inches in diameter and that the MC will need to use hallways.
Yet he turns around in book 2 to premise an entire chapter and the MC's meeting with some allies on the trope that stepping on landmines arms them, and stepping off detonate them. He even prefaced the sequence with some lines about how landmines hadn't really changed in last 120 years, blah blah. Except... Land mines have NEVER worked this way. Designing a mine that arms when you depress a switch and detonates when you release the switch would be more complex and less effective than making one that simply explodes when jostled or placed under pressure. This whole step-on-arm/step-off-boom thing was a hollywood invention.
Now, in book three, the author seems to have stopped giving a shit about believability all altogether. For example: The MC found the psychic at the end of book 2. He then immediately fought his way off planet and is forced to travel to mars. The trip takes 1 week, which the MC specifically points out as being good, because the ship only has 2 weeks of provisions.
When he found the psychic, she had been relegated to inhabiting a pod for so much of her life, she could not even stand up or walk - - ostensibly atrophied muscles and nerves. She was also completely bald.
1 week later, in book 3, she's somehow sprinting through gunfight after gunfight, and somehow keeping up with the MC, who has advanced cybernetics, as well as alien bio-modifications. The author justifies this by saying that her suit gave her pure oxygen to let her keep up - - for hours. Never mind that pure oxygen for that long would just cause oxygen toxicity and kill her, or that oxygen doesn't matter if you have atrophied muscles. She would have needed weeks or months of rehabilitation to even learn to walk again.
On top of that, her hair that was totally bald just 1 week ago, has somehow grown to half-way down her neck. Human hair only grows 6 inches a year. She grew 1 year's worth of hair in a week....
I bet the author didn't bother with research when writing this book. You know, like googling human hair growth rates, or how atrophied muscles behave, or how being bedridden for extended periods of time affects people.
And worst of all, the plot has started to get pretty thin. It was novel and compelling in the first book. Now, it has basically devolved into a flimsy, and somewhat contradictory and contrived excuse for him to jump from engagement to engagement.
The microfractures in the author's character writing, world building, and plot writing have developed into full on cracks and fissures by book 3. The only good thing about this series is the combat action - - which tends to be extremely well written even now. But with an increasingly less compelling plot to tie it together, and no slow moments with good dialogue and characters, even that starts getting old.
This series started off as a solid 4.5 stars for me. The action was great. But the weakness was character interaction. The author's bio claims that he's had a fascinating study of the human species through his various service industry jobs. But the character interactions in this series have been increasingly superficial. It was sub-par in book 1 - - barely adequate. Now it is virtually nonexistent. The only character who was even remotely developed is the MC. Virtually everyone else are cardboard cutouts a with few lines and no personality - - relying instead on the audience to assume a very shallow archetype based on context. Even his two female Companions - - one, a digital imprint of his ex lover, and another an escaped Genetically engineered psychic experiment - - barely get any lines. Worse, when they do get lines, their dialogue is stilted, and their motivations seem contradictory.
For example, in an earlier book, the ex-lover was a criminal mob boss that was successful and highly feared. Yet she threw a hissy fit in the MC's head when he insulted Lunar people for being tall, skinny, and unused to open spaces while trying to talk his way out of a gun fight with a bunch of terrans. Like seriously. Someone with a background that requires such a high level of scheming and social manipulation have known what the MC was doing - - especially since, by that time, she had been digitized and no longer even had a body to be insulted about. Yet she threw a tantrum and gave the MC the silent treatment during a life and death altercation.
Such instances of poor or inconsistent character writing for everyone other than the MC has only gotten worse in this book. Especially with the addition of an additional female sidekick, the drastic decrease in lines and personality of the previoussidekick, and the non-interaction between the two sidekicks. I won't spoil it, but neither really feel like people. Just town NPCs in a video game. Heck, Sharron, his digitized ex, might as well be the thing that generates menu descriptions in a video game, with even less personality than an npc, now.
On top of that, the author appears to be having a hard time keeping his own world building straight as the series carries on. For example, in book one, the author appeared to be attempting to create a believable world based on realistic science, physics, etc. He derided a bunch of Hollywood tropes. For example, one of his characters called the whole climbing through vent thing a product of whatever their equivalent of tv-dramas was, before saying the vents were 10 inches in diameter and that the MC will need to use hallways.
Yet he turns around in book 2 to premise an entire chapter and the MC's meeting with some allies on the trope that stepping on landmines arms them, and stepping off detonate them. He even prefaced the sequence with some lines about how landmines hadn't really changed in last 120 years, blah blah. Except... Land mines have NEVER worked this way. Designing a mine that arms when you depress a switch and detonates when you release the switch would be more complex and less effective than making one that simply explodes when jostled or placed under pressure. This whole step-on-arm/step-off-boom thing was a hollywood invention.
Now, in book three, the author seems to have stopped giving a shit about believability all altogether. For example: The MC found the psychic at the end of book 2. He then immediately fought his way off planet and is forced to travel to mars. The trip takes 1 week, which the MC specifically points out as being good, because the ship only has 2 weeks of provisions.
When he found the psychic, she had been relegated to inhabiting a pod for so much of her life, she could not even stand up or walk - - ostensibly atrophied muscles and nerves. She was also completely bald.
1 week later, in book 3, she's somehow sprinting through gunfight after gunfight, and somehow keeping up with the MC, who has advanced cybernetics, as well as alien bio-modifications. The author justifies this by saying that her suit gave her pure oxygen to let her keep up - - for hours. Never mind that pure oxygen for that long would just cause oxygen toxicity and kill her, or that oxygen doesn't matter if you have atrophied muscles. She would have needed weeks or months of rehabilitation to even learn to walk again.
On top of that, her hair that was totally bald just 1 week ago, has somehow grown to half-way down her neck. Human hair only grows 6 inches a year. She grew 1 year's worth of hair in a week....
I bet the author didn't bother with research when writing this book. You know, like googling human hair growth rates, or how atrophied muscles behave, or how being bedridden for extended periods of time affects people.
And worst of all, the plot has started to get pretty thin. It was novel and compelling in the first book. Now, it has basically devolved into a flimsy, and somewhat contradictory and contrived excuse for him to jump from engagement to engagement.
The microfractures in the author's character writing, world building, and plot writing have developed into full on cracks and fissures by book 3. The only good thing about this series is the combat action - - which tends to be extremely well written even now. But with an increasingly less compelling plot to tie it together, and no slow moments with good dialogue and characters, even that starts getting old.
July 20, 2020
A fulfilling conclusion to the Warrior trilogy...
Brandt manages with the help of Psyche, as well as a venusian dragon (see cover) and his reluctant alien spaceship, to prevent all-out war in the Solar system...
This is a fun romp beginning with running the gauntlet to reach Mars and conitnuing with a trek through Mars to reach the goal: an even bigger alien tech artefact as the ship Brandt is piloting (or is it the other way around) in the hands of the Saturnians...
Lots of violence, lots of fun, an interesting take about the evolution of humanity through different planetary environments...
All in all, a fulfilling end to the trilogy...
Can't wait to see what Brandt is up to in outer space! :)
Brandt manages with the help of Psyche, as well as a venusian dragon (see cover) and his reluctant alien spaceship, to prevent all-out war in the Solar system...
This is a fun romp beginning with running the gauntlet to reach Mars and conitnuing with a trek through Mars to reach the goal: an even bigger alien tech artefact as the ship Brandt is piloting (or is it the other way around) in the hands of the Saturnians...
Lots of violence, lots of fun, an interesting take about the evolution of humanity through different planetary environments...
All in all, a fulfilling end to the trilogy...
Can't wait to see what Brandt is up to in outer space! :)
April 10, 2021
Dragons; Really?
Ok, this book stretched my "suspension of disbelief" to the max but l liked it a lot anyway. Flying dragons on Mars seems more Edgar Rice Borroughs than say, David Weber but it managed to be quite entertaining dispute the constant cliffhangers at the end of most chapters. This book is actually a companion piece to the authors latest book, Guardian. It will be interesting to see if the author continues the Warrior series or the Guardian series next.
Ok, this book stretched my "suspension of disbelief" to the max but l liked it a lot anyway. Flying dragons on Mars seems more Edgar Rice Borroughs than say, David Weber but it managed to be quite entertaining dispute the constant cliffhangers at the end of most chapters. This book is actually a companion piece to the authors latest book, Guardian. It will be interesting to see if the author continues the Warrior series or the Guardian series next.
September 11, 2020
Engaging read
Just wanted to say that I read the whole series. Overall it's great a little slow in the begging, but definitely worth getting into.
Just wanted to say that I read the whole series. Overall it's great a little slow in the begging, but definitely worth getting into.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews