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psocopteraNexus! Book three of the Zeroes trilogy. When I saw it at the library I honestly couldn't remember *why* I was eager to read it, only that I was, and then I reread my very spoilery review of the second one, Swarm, and was like "oh riiight that's why, eeeeep". (And here's my review of Zeroes for the sake of completeness.)
All reaction behind this handy cut! Giant spoilers! Basically: it was good, it was satisfying, it resolved the big cliffhangers it needed to resolve and gave us a *big* finale, good work all around. I really liked the structure/pacing, the not-quite-cold open doing a big action set piece very early on with the jailbreak, and then the Vegas action, and only after that slowing down to start setting up for the finale. I liked that they went for the big world-transforming ending, set up in this fun-to-think-about way, inviting the reader to think about whether they think that would actually work at all like it did in the book, or what three powers would *you* put in the seats if you wanted to change the world. (If "clarity" is a mix of reconfirming existing beliefs plus a sense of personal grounding/satisfaction/meaningfulness, the inverse of the Glitch power of disorientation/meaninglessness, I don't think it would be so magically healing... wouldn't many people just get more self-satisfied in their assholery?) And I felt like they did a good job playing out ideas they introduced, going in further on the idea that every power has its inside-out form. The inside-outing of Ethan's at the end was a perfect conclusion to that.
I will say outside the cut that now that I've read the whole trilogy I definitely recommend it to people who like interesting superpowers, people who like teen-supers in general, and people who like Scott Westerfeld books.
There is a really fascinating conversation here about which of the three authors wrote which characters and a little bit about their process. It made me really want to try co-writing something! (Or even just get betaed again, sigh...) Even though there's some sad-if-you-take-it-seriously stuff about how Margo Lanagan is struggling to find her own voice/confidence in her plotting again now that she's back to writing solo. And weird, offputting comments from Deborah Biancotti about how much she hated the romantic subplots, which, like... okay I guess now I know I don't ever need to pick up anything else she's written, if she finds it necessary to say "barf" and "gag" that many times about a YA trilogy including romance?? But, I don't know, maybe what I really want is the feeling of legitimacy, the idea that I could sit around talking about stories with people and it would count as productive and not an indulgence.
All reaction behind this handy cut! Giant spoilers! Basically: it was good, it was satisfying, it resolved the big cliffhangers it needed to resolve and gave us a *big* finale, good work all around. I really liked the structure/pacing, the not-quite-cold open doing a big action set piece very early on with the jailbreak, and then the Vegas action, and only after that slowing down to start setting up for the finale. I liked that they went for the big world-transforming ending, set up in this fun-to-think-about way, inviting the reader to think about whether they think that would actually work at all like it did in the book, or what three powers would *you* put in the seats if you wanted to change the world. (If "clarity" is a mix of reconfirming existing beliefs plus a sense of personal grounding/satisfaction/meaningfulness, the inverse of the Glitch power of disorientation/meaninglessness, I don't think it would be so magically healing... wouldn't many people just get more self-satisfied in their assholery?) And I felt like they did a good job playing out ideas they introduced, going in further on the idea that every power has its inside-out form. The inside-outing of Ethan's at the end was a perfect conclusion to that.
I will say outside the cut that now that I've read the whole trilogy I definitely recommend it to people who like interesting superpowers, people who like teen-supers in general, and people who like Scott Westerfeld books.
There is a really fascinating conversation here about which of the three authors wrote which characters and a little bit about their process. It made me really want to try co-writing something! (Or even just get betaed again, sigh...) Even though there's some sad-if-you-take-it-seriously stuff about how Margo Lanagan is struggling to find her own voice/confidence in her plotting again now that she's back to writing solo. And weird, offputting comments from Deborah Biancotti about how much she hated the romantic subplots, which, like... okay I guess now I know I don't ever need to pick up anything else she's written, if she finds it necessary to say "barf" and "gag" that many times about a YA trilogy including romance?? But, I don't know, maybe what I really want is the feeling of legitimacy, the idea that I could sit around talking about stories with people and it would count as productive and not an indulgence.
