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A review by pidgevorg
Apocalypse Array by Lyda Morehouse
3.0
A good conclusion to the series, but may be a bit too hurried to stand on its own. I liked the idea of Amariah, the teenage messiah. I liked that she was just a girl with very specific powers, not some super-wise-beyond-her-years Mary Sue. I liked how the newspaper articles between the character POV chapters showed all the changes that were happening in the larger world, almost as a separate plot thread. And I really liked how the Dragon finally got to develop as a character and have her own storyline. It's great that an AI was a true main character, doing most of the character development and driving at least half of the plot. This was true of previous books as well, with Page's POV, but Page starts out as a "copy" of a human, whereas the Dragon is never humanoid to that extent. Between the POV of an AI and a fallen angel, most of the book ended up being told from a non-human perspective, which is refreshing. SF and Fantasy is supposed to be all about strange new worlds and creatures, but usually ends up focusing on some boring boy-next-door human. This book doesn't follow the crowd. Even if its characters are mostly human-like, they have unique non-human problems and concerns.
But that brings me to what I didn't like--the lack of consistency with Morningstar's character. If he's one of the narrators, then I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect him to disclose some of his motivations and his thought process. As it is, he does some things apparently at random, and we never really understand what's going through his head. Throughout the series, I got the sense that he's really not what anyone would call the ultimate evil--he never takes the opportunity to do acts of gratuitous evil. It simply never seems to occur to him. He's mostly a "live and let live" kinda guy. He even sometimes forgets to do the evil things that he himself threatened (like "forgetting" to cut off Mouse's connection to mouse.net even though the guy breaks a deal with him, and yet he remembers to very thoroughly remove Mouse's connection to the LINK). Yet in this book he is presented as someone trying to be good?? Why does he keep telling himself that he loves Emmaline and he should be patient with her, when it's so clear that he hates her guts? Isn't he supposed to be proud and trying to be a badass in contradiction to his angelic origins? Shouldn't he be telling himself that he's only using Em and will destroy her as soon as he can? And what about his thought process? Why doesn't he question anything when God dumps him naked in the middle of smalltown NY? And why the gloom and doom at the end? He hasn't done anything that's not in his power to wheedle out of. It's all a bit disappointing, such a missed opportunity with a wonderful character.
But that brings me to what I didn't like--the lack of consistency with Morningstar's character. If he's one of the narrators, then I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect him to disclose some of his motivations and his thought process. As it is, he does some things apparently at random, and we never really understand what's going through his head. Throughout the series, I got the sense that he's really not what anyone would call the ultimate evil--he never takes the opportunity to do acts of gratuitous evil. It simply never seems to occur to him. He's mostly a "live and let live" kinda guy. He even sometimes forgets to do the evil things that he himself threatened (like "forgetting" to cut off Mouse's connection to mouse.net even though the guy breaks a deal with him, and yet he remembers to very thoroughly remove Mouse's connection to the LINK). Yet in this book he is presented as someone trying to be good?? Why does he keep telling himself that he loves Emmaline and he should be patient with her, when it's so clear that he hates her guts? Isn't he supposed to be proud and trying to be a badass in contradiction to his angelic origins? Shouldn't he be telling himself that he's only using Em and will destroy her as soon as he can? And what about his thought process? Why doesn't he question anything when God dumps him naked in the middle of smalltown NY? And why the gloom and doom at the end? He hasn't done anything that's not in his power to wheedle out of. It's all a bit disappointing, such a missed opportunity with a wonderful character.