Clare Cannon’s Profile

There’s slightly more violence here than in the first with genetically modified human/creatures waging war on the inhabitants of earth. And unlike Cinder and Kai, Scarlet and Wolf get just a little bit soppy over his ‘animal instincts’ which lead him to disobey his master and protect Scarlet instead. In fact, the whole wolf-pack army phenomenon brought back memories of that dreadful vampire book, but at least the context and storyline is new. Cadet Thorne is a tedious addition with his flirting and bad magazines and painting a naked lady on his ship, but our protagonists give him his due and he occasionally offers some comic relief.

These things are all contained in the context of a big adventure whose main characters are good – if realistically weak at times – and even struggle to be better.

Though I prefer Cinder and Kai to Scarlet and Wolf and hope to see more of the princess and emperor in future volumes, I am extremely relieved to find no love triangles; instead, the additional characters have their own romances, so they’re not all fighting over the same girl. Quite refreshing really.

Cinder battles with herself over her ability to influence people's minds and wills, even if for their own good, and I look forward to seeing what she'll do to fight against Queen Levana for the good of the Earthen and Lunar people.

It’s remarkable how easy it is to accommodate oneself to the android/cyborg universe, perhaps because this story is much more about the characters than the sci-fi.

So when can we expect Book 3???

Reviewed for www.GoodReadingGuide.com