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fandom4ever's review
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Borderlands: Gunsight takes place between the Pre-Sequel and 2 as characters are talking about Handsome Jack and his control of Hyperion; also Helios is functional and now placed between the moon and the planet. There’s also talk of Jack destroying all the Claptraps (bless him). Though as this book came out before the Pre-Sequel, certain things like how exactly the Claptraps are destroyed hasn’t been established yet.
Ugh… Daphne is back in this one. While she was simply not worth being called a character in the last book despite having a fearsome reputation, she is straight-up unlikeable in this one. She just whines and demands, I have no idea why Mordecai is with her, acting like they’re very much in love. I was hoping the entire time she’d be eaten by a skag. Then despite her being held captive and doing nothing productive, we kept switching back to her perspective, which wasn’t interesting. I ended up skipping each of her sections and missed nothing. In fact, doing so made for a much stronger book!
Except for those Daphne sections, this is a completely Mordecai-centered book. Brick does show up about 1/3 in but nothing is ever from his point of view. I really enjoyed it; I really got a deeper dive into Mordecai’s character, his motivations, and his relationship with Bloodwing (it now hurts a bit more knowing what happens in 2). Before these books, I didn’t really have an opinion on Mordecai and Brick because they didn’t really feel like they had any substance in the games but these books gave them some depth that they sorely needed.
Borderlands: Gunsight involves two pretty powerful Bandit leaders who want control of Pandora. In fact one of them, Reamus, even has the backing of Jack himself! I liked that we got some new locations that weren’t ones we’ve been to in game or were barely used in game; the Frostbite Highlands which has cold, snowy weather and mountainous areas, and the new settlements of Gunsight and Tumessa. There was also talk of the newly discovered Slag, which was being used for mutations.
There was greater world-building in this third book compared to the second, more references to things that show up in game. At the beginning, Marcus mentions a nuclear war with cannibal tribes and eventually finding star drives and the rise of the corporations. Where is that story??? I would love more than anything to have that backstory to the Borderlands world.
Overall, this book was far superior to the second one, but still not quite as good as the first. Except for about three throwaway lines harkening back to the second book, it’s never mentioned, so Borderlands: Unconquered can absolutely be skipped. I wish the Borderlands series of books hadn’t ended with just these three. They could have done ones with characters from 2 or Pre-Sequel (or even history of the Borderlands universe!) which would have been much more interesting as those characters had more fleshed out backstories when the developers discovered players cared about the characters.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
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