Level Six

The Book in 1 Sentence

A clumsy, forced, story that should have been a chapter in the final book.

Brief Review

This book continues the story that was unique in the onset, but fails to continue the story in any meaningful manner. The book only provides new characters and a singular new event that sets up the third book but nothing else.

Why I Read this book

I read the first book in this series in 2019 and talked about it right before I started teaching. I vaguely remember it and this has been on my recommended list from Audible for a long time so I decided to go back and continue the series.

In-Depth Review (Favorite Quotes)

I am going to give a bit a of a review of Level Five (also called Killday for the Killday series) as best that I can remember it. As it has been 5 years since I read Level Five, I did feel that this book did a decent job of presenting the backstory, but if you hadn't read it, you'd be missing so much information.

The new characters, the main characters in this book, are really one dimensional and kind of boring. Abby, the daughter of the main character in the first book, is kind of forced into EVERY decision she makes and doesn't really make one of her own free will the entire time. Granted that is one of the core questions in the book is whether you can trust AI to protect humans, but you are supposed to trust Mortimore.

There are some decent action scenes, but they are glossed over with an overwhelming wordy and talkative narrator and AI. Skipping most of the action by having "bots" doing the work outside Abby's point of view, you just get the aftermath.

Rating

Overall, what I liked about the first book (at least what I can remember) with the AI's in the story being both ambivalent and benevolent toward humans. The technology is super cool... in the previous book, which isn't expanded upon here and is just retold. This story really could have been the first act in the next book. Nothing happens of value until the last 4 chapters. This is a sad continuation of the series and is so bad I will not continue it as I feel lackluster about the previous book after not reading it for years and this book being even more lackluster. This book is unfortunately a 5.

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