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Cloak Games #10
Last Judge
My master made a deal with the devil, but I'm the one who has to pay. Two items I've stolen for the Rebels, and I only need to steal one more thing for them. Trouble is, it's in Last Judge Mountain, a secret military base left over from before the High Queen of the Elves conquered Earth. There are things in Last Judge Mountain that should never again see the light of day. And if I go into the mountain, I might never come out again...
236 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 1, 2018
104 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Moeller
401 books670 followersStanding over six feet tall, USA Today bestselling author Jonathan Moeller has the piercing blue eyes of a Conan of Cimmeria, the bronze-colored hair of a Visigothic warrior-king, and the stern visage of a captain of men, none of which are useful in his career as a computer repairman, alas.
He has written the DEMONSOULED series of sword-and-sorcery novels, and continues to write THE GHOSTS sequence about assassin and spy Caina Amalas, the COMPUTER BEGINNER'S GUIDE series of computer books, and numerous other works. His books have sold over one million copies worldwide.
He has written the DEMONSOULED series of sword-and-sorcery novels, and continues to write THE GHOSTS sequence about assassin and spy Caina Amalas, the COMPUTER BEGINNER'S GUIDE series of computer books, and numerous other works. His books have sold over one million copies worldwide.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
March 23, 2023
Wow! A really thrilling epic adventure... And one that ended with the mother of all cliffhangers. 😏
The truth about the beginning of everything is revealed. Nadia and the team make it to Judge Mountain to find sky hammer, Nadia's last task for the deal with the Forerunner. Dangerous weapons, and magical foes abound.
And the final showdown draws nearer!
P:S- I'm 99% certain that Murdor is actually Riordan in disguise. Actually began being certain when Vander revealed how the Queen gave him his bracelet...
Can't wait to see how this plays out!
The truth about the beginning of everything is revealed. Nadia and the team make it to Judge Mountain to find sky hammer, Nadia's last task for the deal with the Forerunner. Dangerous weapons, and magical foes abound.
And the final showdown draws nearer!
P:S- I'm 99% certain that Murdor is actually Riordan in disguise. Actually began being certain when Vander revealed how the Queen gave him his bracelet...
Can't wait to see how this plays out!
May 31, 2024
While the action was nonstop, I felt this installment repeated a bit too much of what we've seen before. The initial heist was fun but less intense than previous books, and the Last Judge base assault that the last few books have been building to played like a video game full of hazards we've met before. Part of the problem is that as an engineer I struggle to suspend disbelief that a military base that has supposedly been abandoned for 300 years still functions at this level. I have enough trouble with the trope when it's woo alien tech (eg Stargate Atlantis). Things like creepage and oxidation destroy your wiring and electronics. Reinforced concrete rots in groundwater. Don't get me started on the power source...
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March 10, 2019I'm with Russell in that if Nadia steals the item necessary to enter Last Judge Mountain it will fulfill her "contract." Nicholas is disingenuous by claiming it is only a component of the job.
Is Morelli an enigma to anyone besides me? He doesn't seem to express the same zeal as other Rebels and often makes comments somewhat critical of Nicholas' decisions. Is he perhaps a plant by the Men of Honor? After all, we know Murdo isn't who he's pretending to be so Nicholas isn't as proficient at screening his people as he thinks he is.
Also, where did Nicholas get all his intel on Jeremy Shane? How did he know about the briefcase, flash drive and ultimately the Sky Hammer?
Three or four books back I wondered if the big shindig involving the High Queen and all of the elf nobles would be the Rebels' target. There's been little mention of it. It seems logical to me that if you eliminate your primary target the mopping up of the rest would be easier.
A nice blend of magical and man-made obstacles to overcome. Nadia needs to find a way to outsmart Nicholas.
Is Morelli an enigma to anyone besides me? He doesn't seem to express the same zeal as other Rebels and often makes comments somewhat critical of Nicholas' decisions. Is he perhaps a plant by the Men of Honor? After all, we know Murdo isn't who he's pretending to be so Nicholas isn't as proficient at screening his people as he thinks he is.
Also, where did Nicholas get all his intel on Jeremy Shane? How did he know about the briefcase, flash drive and ultimately the Sky Hammer?
Three or four books back I wondered if the big shindig involving the High Queen and all of the elf nobles would be the Rebels' target. There's been little mention of it. It seems logical to me that if you eliminate your primary target the mopping up of the rest would be easier.
A nice blend of magical and man-made obstacles to overcome. Nadia needs to find a way to outsmart Nicholas.
May 18, 2018
Cloak Games: Last Judge Review
Dear Jonathan, well done with another excellent and exciting adventure. I really enjoyed reading this book and series but realize that there is more to come. Nadia is indeed a powerful person with excellent magical forces at her disposal. I highly recommend reading this book and series to anyone interested in reading a great story. Thanks for the entertainment.
Dear Jonathan, well done with another excellent and exciting adventure. I really enjoyed reading this book and series but realize that there is more to come. Nadia is indeed a powerful person with excellent magical forces at her disposal. I highly recommend reading this book and series to anyone interested in reading a great story. Thanks for the entertainment.
August 2, 2020
Well, Nadia is stuck once again into trying to complete the third contracted task, knowing it will signal the rebels to try and kill her and her brother once they are finished. To makes matters worse, it looks impossible to kill her ex boyfriend. In last judge mountain, we find out the history of the base. Totally mind blowing! Looks like my time will be in this series again! All my reviews are always voluntarily written.
March 8, 2023
Last Stand
Lol, I love when my home town and state are featured in a book (Las Vegas, NV). FYI, all casino elevators have surveillance cameras. This book is a good lead up to the final one and leaves you with a cliffhanger ending. Nadia needs to stop rehashing her Eternity Capsule adventures constantly, though.
Lol, I love when my home town and state are featured in a book (Las Vegas, NV). FYI, all casino elevators have surveillance cameras. This book is a good lead up to the final one and leaves you with a cliffhanger ending. Nadia needs to stop rehashing her Eternity Capsule adventures constantly, though.
April 15, 2023
cliffhanger
I love this series and until this volume the books seemed to wrap up a volume. This one, however, ended in a cliffhanger, which I hate. Only read it if you have the next volume…
I love this series and until this volume the books seemed to wrap up a volume. This one, however, ended in a cliffhanger, which I hate. Only read it if you have the next volume…
September 12, 2023
Enjoying this series. Nadia is procrastinating a decision about her moral dilemma. Good action, interesting history. A few editing errors. 3.5 stars rounded up. Warning: cliffhanger. But the last book is available.
December 31, 2023
Damn, I hate cliffhangers but at least I have the next book to start immediately. Such a good book as Nadia, Murdo and Russell work on the final task to get Sky Hammer. Lots of things happening, lots of action, everything , very good read
May 3, 2025
Deal with the Dark Ones #3
And Nadia Moran, with her brother Russell and Murdo have just finished the end of the deal but the world is at serious danger from a doomsday weapon and Nadia will still have to deal with Nicholas and avoid in the next books the end of the world as we know it
And Nadia Moran, with her brother Russell and Murdo have just finished the end of the deal but the world is at serious danger from a doomsday weapon and Nadia will still have to deal with Nicholas and avoid in the next books the end of the world as we know it
June 8, 2025
I almost dropped this a star because of how abrupt the ending was. I do still enjoy the overall plot. I love Rory, Riordan, and Russel. Nadia has her flaws, but I can still root for her. But I swear the actual writing keeps getting worse with tons of typos and repeated dialogue.
April 4, 2018
Cant wait for more
If i could give it 10 stars i would. OMG! I love roller coasters and this book was a wild adventure.
If i could give it 10 stars i would. OMG! I love roller coasters and this book was a wild adventure.
April 10, 2018
Rollercoaster ride!
Best one yet! Cannot wait for the next one! You had me going with this one. Start with the first one and join the fun!
Best one yet! Cannot wait for the next one! You had me going with this one. Start with the first one and join the fun!
May 18, 2018
Great
I am really loving this series and can not wait for the next book. Thank you for the great entertainment
I am really loving this series and can not wait for the next book. Thank you for the great entertainment
April 2, 2019
3.5 stars
December 5, 2019
A fun book. Who is going to get whacked? Who is going to be betrayed? Will our hero ever have a nice boring day?
The fun continues as we are all on the edge of our seats.
The fun continues as we are all on the edge of our seats.
January 16, 2020
Great (almost) ending
February 22, 2021
Another good addition to the series. Definitely ends in a bit of a cliff hanger, so I'm excited to see how it all pans out.
December 21, 2024
Great read
Another wild ride! Couldn't put it down! I can't wait to see how this story winds up. So many leads to follow! Good read!
Another wild ride! Couldn't put it down! I can't wait to see how this story winds up. So many leads to follow! Good read!
March 28, 2022
This is a great series. Have binge read the last four books involving Morvilind and will review all in book twelve.
March 8, 2025
This was a great book that had a lot of excitement that keeps you interested all the way to the end. I highly recommend this to all!
June 30, 2018
book 10 of Cloak Games. Serious spoilers ahead.
It opens with the news that Lorenz had sent Nicholas an email with Nadia's identity, set up to go if he died. So Nicholas tells her to bring Russell along for the third and final theft.
Turns out it's in two stages, which involve waitresses, golems, a startling discovery about the old-time Secretary of Defense, many mutual threats, a sumptuous lounge in an unexpected place, the question of why the Sky Hammer is the weapon wanted, and more.
It opens with the news that Lorenz had sent Nicholas an email with Nadia's identity, set up to go if he died. So Nicholas tells her to bring Russell along for the third and final theft.
Turns out it's in two stages, which involve waitresses, golems, a startling discovery about the old-time Secretary of Defense, many mutual threats, a sumptuous lounge in an unexpected place, the question of why the Sky Hammer is the weapon wanted, and more.
September 13, 2025
Talk about your cliffhangers!
I hate cliffhangers. I hate them with a passion beyond all reasonable bounds. For the most part, I hate them because they are typically used in the most disingenuous way imaginable, as a tool to guarantee a future audience. If you think about this rationally, however, this makes absolutely no sense when one considers the fact that cliffhangers almost never come at the end of the first book, movie or episode in a series. This is so rare, in fact, that I have NEVER seen it happen, not once that I can recall, across thousands of books and hundreds of movies and TV shows.
What this means then, is that a series, whether it be of books, movies or television shows, will already have an established audience by the time the cliffhanger is used, and the only reason to to use one seems to nothing more than financial avarice on the part of whomever is responsible for it, trying to build a larger audience.
For those of you old enough to remember it, all I need do is ask, “Who shot JR?” If you don’t know that quote, google it. I bet it even has its own entry in Wikipedia. For better or worse, however, that question dominated popular culture for almost an entire year before it was finally answered. It expanded the viewing audience for an otherwise unremarkable soap opera to such an extent that “prime-time soap operas” became a staple on every network for the next decade. AND cliffhangers became, and remain, a favorite device for many authors.
Now this is not to say that there AREN’T times when a cliffhanger DOES makes sense given the pace and tempo of a storyline, and I do not mind those types of cliffhangers in the slightest. If anything, they actually enhance the storyline rather than detract from it. I bring all of this up, because this book is one such case.
As I have mentioned in previous reviews, not only does Moeller not resort to the obligatory cliffhanger as a means to hook his reader, he has in fact perfected the art of “the perfect final sentence.” In every book (at least in this series, to date, since this is all I’ve read of his work so far) he has managed to stand all of the readers’ assumptions on their head and reframe the context of the entire episode/installment and all in the space of a single sentence - the final sentence in the book.
Where a cliffhanger leaves one desperate to know what happens next, Moeller instead typically shines a sudden flash of light that REVEALS something that he had previously kept obscure, leaving the reader KNOWING more rather than WANTING to know more. It’s a refreshing, not to mention stylistically difficult to manage, approach that honors and respects the reader rather than manipulates them. This book, however, DOES end in a cliffhanger, so to speak, and oddly I’m not complaining.
It has been a long, arduous journey to reach the point we have in this story. If you thought you liked the changes in Russell’s character in the previous book, just wait until you read the one-liners Moeller gives him in this one. This kid is ON FIRE and only in the very best ways, for that matter so is Nadia. Moeller even gives the whole cast of villains a chance. Each one gets an opportunity to really shine brightly… right before some of them burn out. It’s awesome, incredibly fast-paced and can only be described accurately as tumultuous.
This book NEEDED to stop where it does. If it had gone any further it would have only diluted the impact of what came before. So yes, it is a cliffhanger. Yes, pretty much everything is left hanging without a single resolution we were expecting to get (while some things we WEREN’T expecting to be resolved were). But Moeller knows his craft quite well, and I can find absolutely no fault.
ENJOY!
I hate cliffhangers. I hate them with a passion beyond all reasonable bounds. For the most part, I hate them because they are typically used in the most disingenuous way imaginable, as a tool to guarantee a future audience. If you think about this rationally, however, this makes absolutely no sense when one considers the fact that cliffhangers almost never come at the end of the first book, movie or episode in a series. This is so rare, in fact, that I have NEVER seen it happen, not once that I can recall, across thousands of books and hundreds of movies and TV shows.
What this means then, is that a series, whether it be of books, movies or television shows, will already have an established audience by the time the cliffhanger is used, and the only reason to to use one seems to nothing more than financial avarice on the part of whomever is responsible for it, trying to build a larger audience.
For those of you old enough to remember it, all I need do is ask, “Who shot JR?” If you don’t know that quote, google it. I bet it even has its own entry in Wikipedia. For better or worse, however, that question dominated popular culture for almost an entire year before it was finally answered. It expanded the viewing audience for an otherwise unremarkable soap opera to such an extent that “prime-time soap operas” became a staple on every network for the next decade. AND cliffhangers became, and remain, a favorite device for many authors.
Now this is not to say that there AREN’T times when a cliffhanger DOES makes sense given the pace and tempo of a storyline, and I do not mind those types of cliffhangers in the slightest. If anything, they actually enhance the storyline rather than detract from it. I bring all of this up, because this book is one such case.
As I have mentioned in previous reviews, not only does Moeller not resort to the obligatory cliffhanger as a means to hook his reader, he has in fact perfected the art of “the perfect final sentence.” In every book (at least in this series, to date, since this is all I’ve read of his work so far) he has managed to stand all of the readers’ assumptions on their head and reframe the context of the entire episode/installment and all in the space of a single sentence - the final sentence in the book.
Where a cliffhanger leaves one desperate to know what happens next, Moeller instead typically shines a sudden flash of light that REVEALS something that he had previously kept obscure, leaving the reader KNOWING more rather than WANTING to know more. It’s a refreshing, not to mention stylistically difficult to manage, approach that honors and respects the reader rather than manipulates them. This book, however, DOES end in a cliffhanger, so to speak, and oddly I’m not complaining.
It has been a long, arduous journey to reach the point we have in this story. If you thought you liked the changes in Russell’s character in the previous book, just wait until you read the one-liners Moeller gives him in this one. This kid is ON FIRE and only in the very best ways, for that matter so is Nadia. Moeller even gives the whole cast of villains a chance. Each one gets an opportunity to really shine brightly… right before some of them burn out. It’s awesome, incredibly fast-paced and can only be described accurately as tumultuous.
This book NEEDED to stop where it does. If it had gone any further it would have only diluted the impact of what came before. So yes, it is a cliffhanger. Yes, pretty much everything is left hanging without a single resolution we were expecting to get (while some things we WEREN’T expecting to be resolved were). But Moeller knows his craft quite well, and I can find absolutely no fault.
ENJOY!
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews