sole survivor

Relic by Alan Dean Foster
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: science fiction
Review: Ruslan is the last human survivor.  Having been rescued by the Myssari, he is resigned to spending the rest of his long life with them, being treated very well, but no less a specimen of his doomed race for all that, as he reminds the reader at least once in nearly every chapter.  For all its repetitiveness on this subject, this is good science fiction.  It's got everything from technology and alien worlds and cultures (and clashes), and the ultimate question of whether humanity can be resurrected will keep you reading until the very end.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

resolution

Changers, Book Four: Forever by T Cooper and Allison Glock-Cooper
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: The end is finally nigh for Ethan/Drew/Oryon/Kim/? (I'm not going to give away anything about his/her final identity).  S/he has one more year to go before s/he can choose his/her final identity.  Who will s/he be this time?  What choice will s/he ultimately make?  These are the questions that made me want to read the last book in this series, and kept me reading until the end of the book.  I have to admit, though, that it was sort of tough going.  First of all, the plot holes are back and better than ever!  Secondly, slang vomited all over this book.  It definitely helped the character have a voice, but it got grating.

And then.  Oh, and then.  For the first quarter or so of the book, we're still with Kim as she wraps up her affairs, particularly with Audrey, with whom she swears undying love and devotion, no matter what the next identity is.  Until it's time for said identity when s/he totally bails.  Good reason?  Maybe.  But not big enough to close the plot hole.  And made most of the second half of the book aggravating.

But, it's all over now.  Ethan/Drew/Oryon/Kim/? has made his/her decision and started the rest of his/her life.  And I will say that the ending was quite lovely.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

no tension

The Prisoner in the Castle by Susan Elia MacNeal
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction, mystery
Review: Maggie Hope just cannot catch a break.  In her latest adventure, she finds herself a prisoner of SOE and MI6 because she knows too much.  She and other highly trained agents are being held in relative comfort on a remote island in the Hebrides.  That there was such a "cooler" in a remote part of Scotland is historical fact.  One can only hope that the agents who were actually held did not have to deal with a murderer picking them off one at a time (a la Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, which gets a shout-out (under its original name) at the beginning of the book), or a Nazi spy.  You would think that with all that going, there would be a lot of tension in this book, but you would be wrong.  Someone dies, they all gasp, but remind themselves that they are not only British (stiff upper lip, old thing) but also trained agents, so they must just soldier on.  We hear Maggie's interior monologue that reminds us that she's so scared and just wants to go home, and that she's a trained agent and can handle this, and she steps forward and takes charge of the situation and tries to calm everyone else's fears (frankly, most of the others don't act like trained agents).  And then someone else is murdered and they all repeat the process.  Oh, and there's a couple of really enormous red herrings.

This is definitely not the strongest book in the Maggie Hope series, but, as always, I look forward to seeing what MacNeal gets Maggie up to next.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.