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A review by kynan
Cold Falling White by G.S. Prendergast
2.0
TL;DR: A requisite sequel that unfortunately doesn't do the job that the first book asked of it.
TL: I liked [b:Zero Repeat Forever|28945665|Zero Repeat Forever (The Nahx Invasions, #1)|Gabrielle S. Prendergast|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1485819276l/28945665._SY75_.jpg|49168220], it had promise...that it didn't quite deliver on. I thought that perhaps the sequel would feature the delivery of that promise but in the end I came away with the feeling that Ms Prendergast, whilst brainstorming the genesis of the Nahx, generated a set of, unfortunately conflicting, ideas, all of which she fell in love with and then attempted to ram them all into the story.
There's nary a beat missed between the end of "Zero Repeat Forever" and "Cold Falling White". There's an immediate answer to the rather obvious "Did Raven die?" question, although that plotline is put on ice for a while to allow Xander to run as the protagonist for a while. We follow along as August fulfills his promise to Raven that he'd help Xander get out. What follows is your more typical "humans really suck in tight situations" post-apocalypse community setup until things get cracking again as (the unsurprising) stage two of the Nahx invasion kicks off.
It's pretty hard to talk about much of the majority of the book as it would definitely be somewhat spoilery in terms of what happens, and with whom it happens. So, restricting myself to generalisations I'll just say that this is very much a continuation of the first book. We catch up with the members of the cast that managed to make it through book 1 (an almost vanishingly small set!) and meet some of their new acquaintances. The aforementioned post-apocalyptic living occurs and we get a front row seat for what happens next.
Unfortunately what happens next does provide an answer to the existence of the Nahx, actually, it appears to provide a couple and I'm not sure they're not exclusive of each other. I will say this: I really liked the revealed reason for the Nahx invasion, it's a super-cool Godzilla-Lovecraftian mashup annnnnd, it's the reason that there are questions asking whether this book is a duology only. You can expect an ending to the all the minor plot points, what you aren't going to get is the answer I came looking for: namely what are the Nahx and why'd they come and lay such a whacky smackdown on the poor old Earthlings?
The problem I had is that, cool high-level reasons aside, the mechanics and low-level reasons for the Nahx presence just don't hold up to the internal logic provided for their presence and weird social setup. In much the same way that modern skeptics point out that any species with the technical nous to actually make it to Earth are highly unlikely to want anything we've got to offer (or anything that we're not offering either - even as a source of protein it's a looooong way to come for a snack). Also, given what we know of non-faster-than-light-travel it's an equally unlikely distance to travel just to hide in forests and occasionally steal and traumatize someone. Through that lens, the very existence of the Nahx is...questionable at best. There're plenty more examples of that kind of weird internal inconsistency in the behaviour of various parties in this book but, if you're willing to overlook that then this book is similar to the first.
The other thing that was somewhat annoying was that, if you found Raven and August's bipolar flip-flopping relationship infurating in "Zero Repeat Forverever", strap-in, because there's going to be a whole lot more sets of people doing almost calculatedly sadistic things to one another. I suspect that this is meant to portray normal human relationships, and people do say really nasty things to each other in real life, I'm not saying they don't, but I don't think that all relationships are quite as out of control as they appear to be in this world. A little bit of actual talking and interaction would've smoothed out more than a few rough spots in these folk's relationships.
Overall, I didn't find this book as compelling as the first and that, combined with the partial satiation of the closure-chasing that brought me here and the continuation of some of the things that nagged me from book 1 are what resulted in the 2-star rating. It was OK, given the existing bond with the characters that was built in the prequel, but there wasn't a whole lot of sane newness here, and no new ground was trod. If another in the series comes along then I'll maybe check it out, or maybe I'll just re-read [b:Armor|102327|Armor|John Steakley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1337817762l/102327._SY75_.jpg|604650].
TL: I liked [b:Zero Repeat Forever|28945665|Zero Repeat Forever (The Nahx Invasions, #1)|Gabrielle S. Prendergast|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1485819276l/28945665._SY75_.jpg|49168220], it had promise...that it didn't quite deliver on. I thought that perhaps the sequel would feature the delivery of that promise but in the end I came away with the feeling that Ms Prendergast, whilst brainstorming the genesis of the Nahx, generated a set of, unfortunately conflicting, ideas, all of which she fell in love with and then attempted to ram them all into the story.
There's nary a beat missed between the end of "Zero Repeat Forever" and "Cold Falling White". There's an immediate answer to the rather obvious "Did Raven die?" question, although that plotline is put on ice for a while to allow Xander to run as the protagonist for a while. We follow along as August fulfills his promise to Raven that he'd help Xander get out. What follows is your more typical "humans really suck in tight situations" post-apocalypse community setup until things get cracking again as (the unsurprising) stage two of the Nahx invasion kicks off.
It's pretty hard to talk about much of the majority of the book as it would definitely be somewhat spoilery in terms of what happens, and with whom it happens. So, restricting myself to generalisations I'll just say that this is very much a continuation of the first book. We catch up with the members of the cast that managed to make it through book 1 (an almost vanishingly small set!) and meet some of their new acquaintances. The aforementioned post-apocalyptic living occurs and we get a front row seat for what happens next.
Unfortunately what happens next does provide an answer to the existence of the Nahx, actually, it appears to provide a couple and I'm not sure they're not exclusive of each other. I will say this: I really liked the revealed reason for the Nahx invasion, it's a super-cool Godzilla-Lovecraftian mashup annnnnd, it's the reason that there are questions asking whether this book is a duology only. You can expect an ending to the all the minor plot points, what you aren't going to get is the answer I came looking for: namely what are the Nahx and why'd they come and lay such a whacky smackdown on the poor old Earthlings?
The problem I had is that, cool high-level reasons aside, the mechanics and low-level reasons for the Nahx presence just don't hold up to the internal logic provided for their presence and weird social setup. In much the same way that modern skeptics point out that any species with the technical nous to actually make it to Earth are highly unlikely to want anything we've got to offer (or anything that we're not offering either - even as a source of protein it's a looooong way to come for a snack). Also, given what we know of non-faster-than-light-travel it's an equally unlikely distance to travel just to hide in forests and occasionally steal and traumatize someone. Through that lens, the very existence of the Nahx is...questionable at best. There're plenty more examples of that kind of weird internal inconsistency in the behaviour of various parties in this book but, if you're willing to overlook that then this book is similar to the first.
The other thing that was somewhat annoying was that, if you found Raven and August's bipolar flip-flopping relationship infurating in "Zero Repeat Forverever", strap-in, because there's going to be a whole lot more sets of people doing almost calculatedly sadistic things to one another. I suspect that this is meant to portray normal human relationships, and people do say really nasty things to each other in real life, I'm not saying they don't, but I don't think that all relationships are quite as out of control as they appear to be in this world. A little bit of actual talking and interaction would've smoothed out more than a few rough spots in these folk's relationships.
Overall, I didn't find this book as compelling as the first and that, combined with the partial satiation of the closure-chasing that brought me here and the continuation of some of the things that nagged me from book 1 are what resulted in the 2-star rating. It was OK, given the existing bond with the characters that was built in the prequel, but there wasn't a whole lot of sane newness here, and no new ground was trod. If another in the series comes along then I'll maybe check it out, or maybe I'll just re-read [b:Armor|102327|Armor|John Steakley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1337817762l/102327._SY75_.jpg|604650].