The Toll

What an ambitious conclusion to the story! It's a rare trilogy where I like each book more than the previous. I enjoyed the intricate plotting here, several stories that felt like they all had their own meaning converging in one place. The author also has a knack for keeping some surprises and twists for us to be revealed in the last third of the book.

I think what I liked most was the author stretching to more complex writing styles. Some experimental prose. Also a complex time-woven narrative. And while he had to do some silly tricks to make everything come together, parking a couple of characters in limbo for a few years while other things happened, I liked it most.

Much like the second book, while it's the Scythedom that's front and center of these stories I think the narrative about the Thunderhead and what a benevolent God-AI would be like is the more interesting sci-fi conceit. The changes in this third book are good, although I do think the author cheated a bit to get to tell some stories he was clearly wanting to tell. The Cirrus being able to talk to people in a way the Thunderhead couldn't. Also the Thunderhead's brief flirtation with being human. Although both of those were wrapped up very nicely in the story of the Cirrus being developed as its own AI. I liked how the long game was played there, the little interstitial stories of the AI iterations.. Not to mention the big cheat at the start, resurrecting most of his characters he killed from book 2 to tell a new story with them. It is a world where resurrection is common, so fair play, but still a bit of an eyeroll from me.

My main complaint is that the overriding global conflict of the Scythedom didn't seem terribly plausible. Specifically once Goddard and the scythedom declare open season on murdering humans. They are a tiny minority in the world; I have to think some uprising would quickly just kill all the scythes. Instead Goddard rules as a global dictator largely without question? The Tonists were supposed to be our faction of resistance but they were so clearly hapless it was hard to take them seriously.

But those are niggling complaints because I am overthinking the story. I appreciate the author just bullied through even with a little silliness because the story it lets him tell is quite satisfying.

They're making a movie of the book(s) but it seems stuck in development hell at the moment. I think that might work well, it'll be interesting to see all this story stripped down to a much shorter screenplay.