The series is still going strong. Book 3 out of 4, so it can neither be an amazing plunge into a whole new world, nor a finish with amazing twists.

Are you baffled, reader?

Reader: “Insult me not, Mycroft.”

It has plenty of politics and philosophy of course. Some of the exposition is surprisingly boring. I mean relatively. The first two books and Mycroft's style of narration have prepared me for nothing less than a constant stream of poetry and revelation and unexpected perspectives. Then here we get a few transcripts of senate sessions or court proceedings that are none of that.

But soon enough the amazing writing returns. Just check out these examples:

I saw Ganymede too give me a last glance, cold and dismissive, and so infinitely less disdainful than my station deserved that I could not mistake it for anything but heartfelt thanks.

Now fear reared dragon-fierce inside me, pain, cold, numbness as my blood’s departure reduced muscle to meat.

The Great Scroll’s Addressee forms all His words with care, as if the rest of us think ourselves typists, armed with delete keys, while He alone remembers that we carve our speech in the unhealing stone called Time.

It's just a joy to read and savor so many sentences. The prose alone makes this 5 stars for me. Everything else is just sugar on the top.

The first two books had their share of interesting references to the process of authoring. Can we trust our narrator? Can we trust the person ("9A") who edited the text? The Will to Battle takes this even further. This is a diary of events after the first books, which make one book in the novel's world. These events include writing that book. My head is spinning.

The theological arc is also making good progress. War, and pretty much everything, is now viewed as a conversation between our universe's God and His Guest, Jehovah.

The cast of characters is so great that just getting a short update of what everyone is up to these days easily fills a book. It is insane to wish for more characters. But it is also a bit strange not to meet a single new person in a whole book. We also never learn much about the population. I suppose this gives the story an abstract quality, where each person is a walking-talking philosophy. If someone has no distinct philosophy, they appear to have no right to appear in this story.

The plot in The Will to Battle is all about preparing for a very unpredictable finale. I am very excited for book 4!