Review: Not a worthy addition to the series - which seems to be dying
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 13, 2013
I liked the first two books in this series.  The books contained good characters, an interesting plot and solid writing.Sadly, this 6th book in the series lacks good characters and the plot failed to interest me in the slightest.  Worse, the main story arc has always been a huge battle between the "good infected" who work for IPB, and the forced aligned behind and with Braid, who is supposedly some super precognitive from an alternate reality.That little twist allows P.S. Power to throw in wild plot twists and swings, several of which end up appearing in this story despite revelations in earlier stories that would make one question some of the developments here.  If Proxy and his actions are truly invisible to her precog skills than why was she setting up some of the events that occur here, the paths she should have seen would not have required this unless she is even more paranoid and insane than hinted at.Other events were equally threadbare when it came to motivation and continuity with the previous tales.  Characters end up acting vastly different than they did even 2 books back and events from the previous book Cellophane appeared to have had little to no immediate effect on the plot.I also found Tobin (Goblin) to be an extremely unsympathetic character.  His "first mode" filled his monologues with a lot of useless angst.  and for someone who had supposedly spent years in the IPB he seemed remarkably unknowledgable about the overall politics of the group.This is a very weak story.  I do not understand how others gave it 5 stars.  I was tempted to only give it 2, but felt that there was just enough that I'll grant it a very low 3 star rating.  Lovers of the series will enjoy it for completeness, but honestly, this is not a good book.  It has a forgettable plot and characters wrapped around a deus ex machina wielding villain.  At this point P.S. Power can have anything happen and claim that Braid planned it years in advance.  Such cheap tricks might allow the author to take the story to the ending they have mapped out, but they make for a boring and very unsatisfying read.