After the whirlwind of the previous book in this series, this book should have felt like a time to breath. Unfortunately, I think the authors took things a bit too far in the other direction. They teased us with a Bobbie-centered prologue, and then things started to drag. On top of it all, I wasn’t a huge fan of Elsi, Havelock, and Basia, the point of view characters other than Holden.
Which is a shame, because the first half of the book reminded me a lot of one of my OTHER favorite television shows. The scientist and military versus “natives” interactions was very reminiscent of some of the conflicts from Stargate Atlantis.
Luckily, the second half of the book kicks off with a bang. Literally, lots of things go bang and I was at the 49% mark on my Kindle. The action picks up with all the ridiculousness I could possibly want, and even Elsi and Basia start to redeem themselves as people I began to care about (I always cared about Havelock, even if I didn’t always agree with his choices, which is an excellent trick of characterization on the authors’ part).
My husband is itching for me to start book 5 and promises that things pick up again. Overall, perhaps this book is just a weird interlude that hopefully sets up more intergalactic weirdness.
I’m excited to see how the television show interprets this book for its fourth season, and I hope that I get to hear Holden say, “This is a terrible, terrible planet” at least once.
Rating: 4 (out of 5) stars. Cross-posted to Amazon and Goodreads.
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