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Emperors of Twilight | Rating | |
| A | |||
| S. Andrew Swann | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The Moreau Series | Forests of the Night, Emperors of Twilight, Specters of the Dawn, Fearful Symmetry, Profiteer, Partisian, Revolutionary | ||
Evi Isham is a federal agent. More importantly, she is a frank - short for frankenstein, a genetically modified human. Her senses are enhanced, she is extremely strong and heals quickly, and she gives off no scent - an important addition in a world where certain animals have been given intelligence and made into soldiers. But all her abilities and modifications will be put to the test when a contract is put out on her life. Now she is on the run, unable to come in to the security of her agency and with every law enforcement officer in New York after her, as well as who knows who else.
The book starts out at a run, going barely three pages before the action gets going. The pace doesn't let up for a good long time, either. The bad side of this frenetic action is that for over half the book Evi is largely reacting, trying to hide and get away to someplace, anyplace, where she can be safe and meanwhile trying to figure out who is after her and why. As a result it seems like she has little initiative and doesn't ever take the lead. If the hero is always being forced to do what they're doing, they're not really being very heroic. Thankfully, she does eventually take the lead, thus redeeming the novel in my eyes.
It's also good in one other respect. In the first book, Forests of the Night, past wars are mentioned quite often. But we really get no sense of the conflicts, other than how this country or that one lost. But who fought whom when and over what was left unsaid. But now at last we get a little detail on the world history that led to the current political situation. We finally find out the official reasons for it all - although astute readers will probably have long since guessed what the true reason behind it all is.
This book isn't as much a mystery as the last book. In fact, this is more akin to an action thriller movie, with chases and gunfights galore. (Not that the first book didn't have those.) It's still a very good book, in my opinion; it's just in a different category.
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