The first installment I likened to a cross between Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew.
The same holds true for this novel and it really gets old.
It starts out a little stronger as if the author had realized who his characters and plot points of intrigue really were, but quickly devolved into the same silliness that we saw in the first book, "The Second Ship."
I have read Chuck Palahniuk's take on "narrators." (Yes, I am a hardcore Palahniuk fan, but also Gibson, Stephenson, Dick and others of the Cyberpunk and Science Fiction genre). In summation, he astutely notes that if the reader does not like the narrator then the writer is screwed.
Mr. Phillips...you're...well...you get it.
The kids narrating this thing are so annoying, so ridiculous it is astounding. I, the reader, truly ended up so antagonized by the just-pubescent protagonists that I felt like burning some highlights magazines in effigy.
PS-where are their parents during this mess?!
We have these dark concepts described through the eyes of children which comes across as 'perverse,' but not in a dark, gritty way which should be the intent. It feels more like an episode of "My Three Sons" where they try and explain the heck out of every move they make, come up with a moral code, tell us what they are doing, why and how we can do it better next time and then set us up for the next point.
Aside from one character (Jack) I am hard-pressed to find the redeeming features of any other. Even he is a stretch and I think I only enjoy his scenes because he hardly speaks! Mr. Phillips...where did you learn dialogue? Old sex-ed videos? It is so stilted and dry...I already know how to put the condom on thank you! Stop condescending to the reader!
I read the 1st and 2nd installments back to back and let me tell you...it was a struggle. A few pages here. A few pages there. This book took me two weeks when it should have been no more than one. Why? Because it was boring. The plot was boring. The characters are tired. The dialogue is contrived. The twists are evident. BLAH. I just vented my spleen as it were for the time lost and now I feel like I must read the third upon arrival just to finish it out!
I got these as gifts and glad I paid nothing for them.
Again, the science is fascinating, but it does not make up for the poorly written work.
2.5 stars again for some minor intrigue and a reach, but seriously sir, find your tone, find your audience and write like you know it.
I read a lot of everything (I just read "Room," "Rant," The Millennium Trilogy and Christopher Moore's "Lamb." I have just started "Apathy and Other Small Victories") so I am not married to any one genre, but this is simply tripe.
Cut the clichés, get rid of the ridiculous attempts at pulp noir and get on with it.
Namaste. ;)