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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Freeheads

And thus Kerry Nietz's DarkTrench Saga ends with Freeheads.

Sandfly and HardCandy are returning to Earth after their encounter with the jinn on the planet Jannah. Only when they arrive on DarkTrench, their ship, they discover a planet that has changed and not for the better. They're strangers now, complete outsiders, worse than they've ever been.

But Sandfly's mission hasn't changed. He has a message for the people of Earth, one that could set them free. Will anyone listen? Or will the message of A~A^3 die with him?

I really liked this series overall. The premise, if you're not familiar with it, is a future world where Islam has pretty much conquered the globe. Sandfly and HardCandy are debuggers, humans implanted with a device that allows them to connect to technology wirelessly. It's a fascinating idea and a bit chilling. And while Freeheads wraps everything up nicely, I think it's probably best if you've read all of the books in the series recently. It took me a few chapters to get back into the groove, so to speak, and there were a few characters I couldn't remember from the first book.

The only other thing that I noticed, and this isn't a really big deal, is that the first half of the book struck as . . . well, a little slow. I'm not sure how to describe it, exactly. I got a feeling that something big was lurking under the surface (pun intended?) that never really revealed itself. I don't know if Nietz was trying to intentionally misdirect me, but there you go. Like I said, it's not a big deal and it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the book at all. Just a weird, nagging feeling I got.

It'll be interesting to see what Neitz does next. Given what I've seen from this trilogy, I'll be first in line.

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