Olivie Blake

Although I'm still processing what I really think about this novel, and the trilogy as a whole, what I find most striking is the visceral reaction of a lot of readers to whom Ms. Blake picked to be the lottery loser in this misguided children's crusade; you'd think that she personally visited these people to kill their puppy just for the hell of it. Then again, as someone who is saturated in military history, I'm used to the reality that it's the best ones that get cut down in their prime; deserves has nothing to do with it.

That said, I was never invested in this trilogy for the "shipping," nor in terms of pulling for one of the flawed golden boys to wind up on top. I mostly hung around to see how this power fantasy played out, and learn whether one of the female characters wound up being the conventional sacrificial lamb in the end; that such was not the case pleased me.

Still, having read Ms. Blake's agenda for this exercise, I think my main issue might wind up being that having a plot driven by people bouncing off each other on day-to-day basis does clash with the demands of writing what's a form of thriller on one hand, and a polemic on the other. Which is a polite way of saying that this whole exercise probably ground on a bit too long, as the longer a narrative goes I think it's inevitable that suspension of disbelief is going to suffer.

On the whole though, I don't regret the investment of time and will consider reading Ms. Blake's future works.… (meer)