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A review by icfasntw
Breach Zone by Myke Cole
2.0
VERDICT: An okay beach read set in a thought-provoking alternate universe. Terrible cover and title. Lots of politics. This volume was the most disappointing book of the series. I lost interest about halfway through, but was able to pick it back up and finish the story.
QUICK PITCH: Tom Clancy meets Avatar: The Last Airbender, or an Americanized version of [a:Ben Aaronovitch|363130|Ben Aaronovitch|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1308855588p2/363130.jpg]'s Peter Grant series. Bad guys kick the crap out of New York City, as they're wont to do.
Two things made it difficult for this book to hold my attention: fight scenes and shifting POV. I'm not one for fight scenes, especially with guns or hand-to-hand combat, and this book contained many. (The magical fight scenes were pretty good, actually.) Shifting POV doesn't usually bother me, but here all the shifts were too jarring. Harlequin's story didn't mesh clearly with Bookbinders, and the addition of the "six years ago" version of Harlequin added to the mess. The "six years ago" stuff could've been moved to an introduction, or an interlude, or something, but interspersing it with other chapters was weird.
In this volume, Harlequin suffered from acute protagonist syndrome. He was a perfectly hate-able antagonist in the first book, and a reluctant helper in the second. In this book, he's a split personality. The "six years ago" stuff matches with his antagonist persona from book one, but the present-day stuff sounds like Oscar Britton all over again. I understand that he's probably changed between six years ago and the present, but I don't buy that Harlequin is that torn about magic and magic users. I also don't believe that he's suddenly started agreeing with all of Britton's arguments. It would've made more sense to give someone else the POV, and show Harlequin's growth through someone else's eyes.
Nearly the opposite thing happened to Crucible, a secondary/minor character in the series, which made me sad. In [b:Control Point|11783484|Control Point (Shadow Ops, #1)|Myke Cole|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309460843s/11783484.jpg|15964749], he's someone Oscar Britton nearly trusts. In [b:Fortress Frontier|14759319|Fortress Frontier (Shadow Ops, #2)|Myke Cole|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344889489s/14759319.jpg|20408847], he's the person who pushes Bookbinder to grow, and becomes someone you want to like. In Control Point, particularly in the flashbacks, he nearly becomes an antagonist. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth about a character I enjoyed, which was frustrating.
And then there's Grace/Scylla--the deadly, power-hungry antagonist unleashed by Oscar Britton in [b:Control Point|11783484|Control Point (Shadow Ops, #1)|Myke Cole|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309460843s/11783484.jpg|15964749]. The reason she's so evil is finally revealed. It sucks. She's evil because she's been poisoned by the drug she takes to control her power in the first place. She's evil because the side effects of the drug include "psychotic tendencies". It's a cop-out, especially because the other characters have put Scylla through enough to make her vengeful without any medical intervention.
During this book, it's also revealed that Grace has a twin, and that their mother called them Scylla and Charybdis. Alas, Charybdis never appears to counter her sister. I wish she had. (Maybe Scylla killed Charybdis when she Manifested, but I don't remember them mentioning that. It just seems like a wasted opportunity.)
QUICK PITCH: Tom Clancy meets Avatar: The Last Airbender, or an Americanized version of [a:Ben Aaronovitch|363130|Ben Aaronovitch|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1308855588p2/363130.jpg]'s Peter Grant series. Bad guys kick the crap out of New York City, as they're wont to do.
Two things made it difficult for this book to hold my attention: fight scenes and shifting POV. I'm not one for fight scenes, especially with guns or hand-to-hand combat, and this book contained many. (The magical fight scenes were pretty good, actually.) Shifting POV doesn't usually bother me, but here all the shifts were too jarring. Harlequin's story didn't mesh clearly with Bookbinders, and the addition of the "six years ago" version of Harlequin added to the mess. The "six years ago" stuff could've been moved to an introduction, or an interlude, or something, but interspersing it with other chapters was weird.
In this volume, Harlequin suffered from acute protagonist syndrome. He was a perfectly hate-able antagonist in the first book, and a reluctant helper in the second. In this book, he's a split personality. The "six years ago" stuff matches with his antagonist persona from book one, but the present-day stuff sounds like Oscar Britton all over again. I understand that he's probably changed between six years ago and the present, but I don't buy that Harlequin is that torn about magic and magic users. I also don't believe that he's suddenly started agreeing with all of Britton's arguments. It would've made more sense to give someone else the POV, and show Harlequin's growth through someone else's eyes.
Nearly the opposite thing happened to Crucible, a secondary/minor character in the series, which made me sad. In [b:Control Point|11783484|Control Point (Shadow Ops, #1)|Myke Cole|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309460843s/11783484.jpg|15964749], he's someone Oscar Britton nearly trusts. In [b:Fortress Frontier|14759319|Fortress Frontier (Shadow Ops, #2)|Myke Cole|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344889489s/14759319.jpg|20408847], he's the person who pushes Bookbinder to grow, and becomes someone you want to like. In Control Point, particularly in the flashbacks, he nearly becomes an antagonist. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth about a character I enjoyed, which was frustrating.
And then there's Grace/Scylla--the deadly, power-hungry antagonist unleashed by Oscar Britton in [b:Control Point|11783484|Control Point (Shadow Ops, #1)|Myke Cole|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309460843s/11783484.jpg|15964749]. The reason she's so evil is finally revealed. It sucks. She's evil because she's been poisoned by the drug she takes to control her power in the first place. She's evil because the side effects of the drug include "psychotic tendencies". It's a cop-out, especially because the other characters have put Scylla through enough to make her vengeful without any medical intervention.
During this book, it's also revealed that Grace has a twin, and that their mother called them Scylla and Charybdis. Alas, Charybdis never appears to counter her sister. I wish she had. (Maybe Scylla killed Charybdis when she Manifested, but I don't remember them mentioning that. It just seems like a wasted opportunity.)