MagicUnk
11/29/2022
Bummer... The story started promising, but then at the very end it derailed completely. It started out as any other military sf-y story, with villain and mercenary heroes and such, quite well written and with a decent pace.
Then halfway through the story an entity called Zhang showed up, with no background explanation as to where it came from, why it did what it did, etc. Could have been left out completely as it didn't add a thing to the story.
But that's not the worst of it; the last 20-30 pages were a real letdown. we were led to believe there'd be a trap set for our heroes, but there wasn't? The villains got killed just like that?! No fight, no nothing. It feels to me as though the author suddenly noticed, oh, i'm already over 500 pages, it's becoming too long, i need to put an end to it.
4 for writing style and pace, -2 for a bad finishing job.