Hoooh boy, we finished the series! I will say I’m a little sad it’s over, and I felt like A.G. Riddle could have made this two books, considering how much stuff we learned in the last say 20% of the book.
This book was decidedly sci-fi, taking a very different turn from the other two books, which you could conceivably describe as action (book 1) or action/mystery (book 2) with a little sci-fi thrown in. We learn about the enemy that General Ares is so very worried about; we learn about the backstory of the girl Atlantean scientist that saves us as a species way back when; we learn about Atlantean society as a whole!
There are some things that, in retrospect still don’t make 100% sense, but I suppose anything in the sci-fi genre never will make 100% sense.
Okay, enough non-spoiler talk. Here we go!
Dorian Sloane
So…about that theory that I had that Dorian Sloane would turn out to be a hero for humanity. I was…kind of right? I rather dislike the way his character went out. It seems so out of character for him to just space himself. In his mind, he was the good guy; he was trying to save humanity. Humanity is in shambles back on earth; surely he would have tried to find a way back to try and save what was left? Bah, oh well.
Jurassic Park
I feel like there was a large opportunity lost here in not exploring the dome on the ship more, the one that held the biosphere with the invisible carnivores. I was very surprised that it was over with in what seemed like just a few chapters. When it was first introduced, I thought for sure that would be the unique thing in this book, much like the journal was in The Atlantis Gene and the whodunnit was in the The Atlantis Plague.
But not so much! No big deal though, I did very much enjoy the adventures of our protagonists (and antagonists!) as they had to navigate this foreign world basically, with invisible creatures trying to murder them.
One of the more common criticisms about this series of books is that it didn’t describe the scenery well enough, that it was too plot driven. Not so with this section of the book! I could vividly see the action happening in my mind as Kate and David went through the jungle, as Dorian scanned left and right with his laser scope, trying to find the invisible animals that had butchered his men.
Crap, I let too much time pass before finishing this review
So um, here’s where the review is going to get a lot more unspecific. Alas, I let like 2.5 months go by before I picked it back up, and now I only remember the large impressions that the book made and am significantly less excited than I was before. You can probably tell from the tone now vs the tone above haha.
If you read about this book elsewhere, you will notice a common theme running through them. Whether or not people liked the book (and there were definitely opposite sides on that), they all felt like the story was rushed at the end. Alas, I do have to agree with that assessment. The denouement came so quickly at the end to wrap everything up. We definitely could have had a second book to deal with that, but oh well.
Backstory Flashbacks
That being said, I do like that we get to have the entire universe and backstory fleshed out. Like book 1, A.G. Riddle chose to show how we got to this point with the use of flashbacks, both from the perspective of Kate and Sloane’s Atlantean counterparts.
General Ares was obviously built as the antagonist throughout the entire story, and we get to learn why he’s such a hardass. He experienced the genocide of most of his race, rebuilt it, only to see if fall back into ruin because while he remained a hardass, he saw his society get soft. And then saw it fall again. So in his mind, the downfall of his race was tied to the softness than he never lets himself feel anymore.
And we get to learn so much more about Kate’s Atlantean counterpart, Isis. You kind of got the impression that Isis accidentally messed everything up in the past (with the best of intentions!) in the past few books. This time, you get to witness it firsthand along with Kate. She’s the one who accidentally damns her society with gene therapy. Whoops. The road to hell is paved with good intentions…right?
The End
So, alas I don’t remember a ton about the ending now that I have almost 3 months rust on me. I remember thinking that things were rushed, and that stuff didn’t 100% make sense, but oh well. For instance, the Atlantean faction that Isis helped are the ones that end up saving the day, but they arguably are the weakest force around compared to the Sentinels and the Serpentines. How does that work?
And it’s revealed that Ares’s plan all along was to mess up Earth so badly that the new bad guys will want to come and assimilate all the people on the planet, thinking that everyone on the planet will willingly join the ~~Borg Collective~~ the Serpetines. Um, what? This entire time, I thought we were training a race of super soldiers to go and fight some bad guys. That’s what Dorian Sloane sold me on. What? You could have messed up the planet in other ways than that. It…didn’t quite make sense to me.
But oh well. Not everything ends the way you want it to. And overall, I was entertained by the overarching story. I will still fight anyone who says the first book, The Atlantis Gene, is not a good book haha. And I rather liked the second book, The Atlantis Plague. Too bad the author has said we won’t revisit this world at all, but it was nice spending time in it nevertheless.
Two More Pages! 