I have to admit didn’t enjoy this book as much as the first in the trilogy. As with the first, I was listening to the audiobook (and with many interruptions as I spend a lot of time listening to political podcasts in between audiobook listens), so maybe it’s better in book form, but I found it rather a confusing series of events with much less character development. I’ve heard there’s a ton of typos in the paperback, though, so that probably would have driven me nuts.
Many of the science fiction ideas in Fear the Survivors are fascinating–artificial intelligence humans can sort of mind meld with, advanced weapon drone sort of things, the space station elevator thing (look, I don’t know if I even understood what was going on half the time, but the tech seemed cool).
So there were great ideas and a lot of action, but it still left me feeling a bit meh. This may partly be that I’m not all that interested in war and space age weapons, which probably means I should have realized that a trilogy about defending the world from space invaders wouldn’t really be for me. I prefer the kind of science fiction where humans are either heading out into the great unknown or already out there wreaking havoc (or doing good as the case may be).
For some reason the characterization just didn’t do it for me. I appreciated a wide range of characters like in the first book, but I think there were just so many of them you didn’t get a good grasp of who’s who, particularly in audiobook form. I think there was both a Niles and a Neil and I kept getting them confused. Also, in spite of all the action, I kept feeling bored (perhaps why I kept switching over to podcasts). I haven’t decided if I’ll listen to book 3. Part of me kind of wants to know what happens; part of me wants to move on to something I’ll enjoy probably enjoy more. If you like in a Tom Clancy sort of novel mixed with science fiction, this might be more for you than for me. I’m giving it 3 stars rather than 2 because it did keep my interest enough for me to finish it and I still might move on to the last novel. I do think it could be more rewarding for a different reader.