I really like Nemesis but I can't continue with the huge plot holes. I have way too many questions about the basic world building and technology. If science and learning are outlawed, then how were Diabolics created? It makes them seem like a new creation, but isn't new science outlawed? And where do you draw the line on blasphemy? Is learning to sew a crime? What is considered BAD learning? 

Again, Nemesis is cool. But I take too many issues with the plot.

I don't know how to feel about this book. Just about every character was awful and grated on my nerves. But the story was compelling and I had to see it to the end. So I am really not quite sure what to say. I will just give it 3 stars and call it a wash.

So, in each of the three books by Horner that I've read, he throws his readers deep into a technologically-enhanced future that requires a very specialized vocabulary. The books are chock full of what I'll be calling SF hooptedoodle, which is cool -- it can be intimidating at times, it can be overwhelming at times, but it suits his fiction well. Now, in Darkside Earther (this book's predecessor), Horner told a sweet teen love story surrounded by SF hooptedoodle. Degrading Orbits, on the other hand, frequently feels like a swamp of SF hooptedoodle with a little bit of a human story here and there.

This is all about the fallout from the climatic events from Darkside Earther, how Axel's parents are trying to save him, the Ring, and their careers (not necessarily in that order). They do this by putting Axel under the care of a security team to protect, heal and train him into being what his parents need him to be.

The biggest part of this protection and training takes the form of cutting off all communication with Helen and the rest of his friends and former life. Axel obviously doesn't want this, but is unable to do anything else.

Thankfully, Helen, his friends and the large gaming community they're part of are busy trying to hack into his brain -- among other things. We don't get to see most of what they're up to, but we do get to hear summaries of it in the brief moments that Axel and Helen get to spend communicating. And it sounds very promising.

My biggest problem with this book is that Helen and Axel have practically zero agency -- what they do has almost no impact at all on the events of this novel. And the events of the novel aren't affected all that much (with one exception) by anything Axel does. Now, it's pretty clear that what they did do in this novel will have huge impact on what's to come. But here it was less useful than using a piece of crabgrass to pick a deadbolt. I know that's how things have to go sometimes, but it's more than frustrating in a novel.

I liked these characters going in and was looking forward to seeing how they recovered from the previous book. So I was a little disappointed in this one, but I do have every confidence that this was necessary to set up a great finale. I'm looking forward to being proven right. In the meantime, I had enough fun watching Axel get put through his paces and Helen trying to save the day. I even enjoyed trying to suss out what was going on with the SF hooptedoodle.

In the end, while this didn't work for me as much as I wanted it to, I still enjoyed it and am looking forward to seeing how Horner wraps up this trilogy -- I'm sure that this book set up things for that conclusion in such a way that the things that I wasn't crazy about in Degrading Orbits won't be as prominent in it. It's a good book, even with my quibbles -- but it could've been a little better.

You know, I used to feel really, really guilty about putting a book down before I had finished it. Like I owed the author something. But after suffering through way too many terrible books with one-dimensional characters and cliche plots, I learned I only owe MYSELF the respect of actually enjoying what I read.

This book, what I was able to read of it, was boring as crap. At first, I was okay with the characters, but the more you read, the more you realized they were absolutely lacking in any depth. Elias is just the straight-A, rich jock type with mommy issues, Laia is the pretty-not-pretty girl with no spine but a world of talents and no brain.

The world, which was billed as Rome-like, didn't feel Roman at all. In fact, I didn't feel much world building at all. 

The names of the people in this book were like something from a children's book. The Martials, the military types. And the Scholars, the smart ones. Really?

The Resistance uses Laia as a spy to bring down the Empire. That's the point I quit because Laia, despite her parents supposedly being huge Resistance leaders, is an idiot. What well-oiled revolution is going to use a stray they just found in the sewers as their spy? It reeks of stupidity on all parts. The girl couldn't even say a sentence without stammering and she's being sent into the Commandant's quarters.

Oh, and there's lots of mention of rape. The Masks, the really "good" assassins, really like rape. 

Is this what passes as literature? This book was so fucking hyped it's all I saw on my Instagram feed for months. God, I have got to learn to trust you guys here over pretty pictures on Insta. Those people take great pics of trash writing.

I have been listening to this for almost 7 hours and absolutely nothing has happened. Nothing. A lot of Lada being an absolute bitch to anyone and everyone and her brother being an obviously homosexual wannabe Muslim and everyone else is out to kill them. I am so over this mess. I hate Lada. She is nasty and vindictive and rude. Everything she does "out of love" is manipulative. I kept on listening, praying for this to pick up, but it never did. All battles were skipped, which is such a Twilight move. Any time a fight scene might come up, the chapter ends, the next begins and everything is over. It's just lazy writing. A lot of fluff and filler. Boring.