More blood, guts, and oh, so much pain. In fact, I’d have to say a bit too much pain. After a character has experienced “more pain than ever before” several times and survived, it begins to feel like a day at a nude beach. After a while, we just stop noticing.

To sum up, this next book in the series tries to take us in a different direction but depends too much on the physical mayhem and gore that carried the last book.

This is definitely a “to be continued” story, ending with a new tactic in the battle between Shadow and Engine. Like in the second book of many trilogies, the characters and their situations deteriorate a great deal in this volume (think “Empire Strikes Back”). I hope the next part of the series is a bit more uplifting.

(4 / 5)