Obsidio

Oh my god why did I read this whole series? I don't know. It's a really easy read with a fast plot and some interesting themes (that never really get developed). But the characters! OMG the characters are among the most annoying and flat I've ever encountered. And the ending! THE ENDING!! Angry face.

This reads like bad fanfiction. And I mean baaaaaad fanfiction. It's filled with Mary Sues and overly "clever" dialogue which is just annoying and rude. It's basically a teenage fantasy where the kids are all naturally brilliant and badass and are the only ones who can save the day but those pesky adults keep standing in their way. Also the romance... yuck. Each book stars a different teenage couple (straight) who have issues in the beginning but through their adventure come to realise they love each other and they'll always be together 4ever. Blech. Also! The series seems to be trying for that no-one-is-safe, game-of-thrones vibe by killing of lots of people but the 7 main characters (the 3 couples and their one disabled friend who never has a romantic prospect) are always safe. In each book at least one of them "dies" only for there to be a miracle that saves them in the end. In the third book this one character is training to be a fighter pilot and he walks around everywhere with a parachute strapped to his back. Everyone makes fun of him because he'll be flying in space. (So where did he get the parachute? And why does he wear it all the time??) You know it's going to be important because they won't stop mentioning it. Then he and another main character are in a dogfight and their ship gets blown up and everyone thinks they're dead. But no! The one with the parachute somehow grabbed the other guy and they floated safely to the ground thanks to the parachute. But they were blown. up. And they WERE! IN! SPACE!!! Arrggghghhhghhggh

I think I read all this because of the audiobooks. They're read by a full cast who actually managed to give the characters some personality. The voice for the AI was especially compelling. And honestly I listened to them while doing other things so I didn't feel like I was wasting my time. But I think maybe I did still waste my time. It's just that it could have been so goooood. I mean there's a zombifying virus and an evil corporation and a murderous AI that is slowly becoming more human. There are some really interesting ideas that could have been developed about individual responsibility for being part of an immoral corporate machine. Are you a bad person if you work for a bad company? What if corporations had their own armies? How would the military culture of subordination work if the military were corporate? Is it any worse to kill while "just following orders" when those orders ultimately come from a corporation rather than a government? Is fighting for your company inherently less moral than fighting for your country, or in the end is it all the same? Is collateral damage ever acceptable? That's not even getting started on the questions about artificial intelligence learning emotions, the morality of trading lives, personal vengeance. There's such a good book in here that gets dropped to focus on the love lives of some impossibly perfect teenage Mary Sues. So frustrating!

And the censoring of swears is still really annoying.