The Adrestia Maneuver: Book Two of the Azazel Series

Azazel #2

by J.E. Kennedy

The Adrestia Maneuver – Book Two of the Azazel Series Hatch Doran and the Odysseus team are enjoying a run of good fortune, but clouds are gathering. If Thomas Dartham and the Group discover what really went down in the incinerator, they’ll turn New York City inside-out to have Hatch’s hide. But Hatch is serene. He’s committed to thwarting the Group’s greatest weapon, a destructive, interdimensional force called Azazel, and he believes otherworldly powers have his back. His friends think he has lost his mind. As gangs take to the streets of New York to protest a glitzy social Gala, and innocent people suffer in the labor camps, Helena, the Group’s advanced artificial intelligence, identifies a threat to its own existence. The AI’s conclusions present Dartham with a wrenching dilemma, and lead to an outcome neither he nor Helena could have foreseen. Meanwhile, Hatch just wanted to finish his father’s work and see Azazel defeated. He never expected his quest to go so wrong or to put his friends in such danger. And he can’t figure out what the Adrestia artifact, the mysterious power that he believes is guiding his actions, is really up to. Society hangs by a thread, the planet suffers increasing stress, and Hatch has plunged into a deadly cosmic battle which none of the participants intend to lose. The Azazel The Azazel SyndromeBook The Adrestia Maneuver

286 pages, Paperback

Published September 18, 2019

About the author

J. E. Kennedy has a lifelong love of fiction and literature, especially sci-fi and historical fiction. He resides in Peachtree City, Georgia after thirty years in New York and Connecticut, welcomes and appreciates contact with readers, and can be reached here at Goodreads or at jekennedy@jekennedywriter.com

The Azazel Series:
Book 1: The Azazel Syndrome
Book 2: The Adrestia Maneuver

Reviews

[A. Hall]

I'm really liking this series. Book two picks up right where the first left off with Adrestia in the hands of Hatch and his friends(by extension; it takes half the book before everyone in Odysseus is all caught up to speed; I'm still not sure what Nathan knows by the end but that's a very typical question for Nathan anyway, lol) and Dartham sifting through the ashes looking for the container. Everything starts sort of slow but fast at the same time. There's a lull while Dartham and the Group are distracted and Hatch just kind of sits around thinking the goddess will direct him when it's time to do stuff.

I no longer have any empathy for Sam except pity for the fact that she seems so lost. She was so sanctimonious and pretentiously optimistic in the first book, like it almost gave her a sense of glee and pride to think of herself so above Hatch and his "too-gloomy" outlook. Like being Pollyanna, rather than a reason to uplift everyone else, made her better and gave her something to be contrary with Hatch about. That's how it comes off now, with her insistence on her and Hatch eventually getting back together, her regret and leering at Camilla when she realizes Hatch isn't some thing to just wait around for her and he doesn't expect that from her either. like all of her New Agey "bright side" crap was an act she put on to start fights with Hatch because she thrives on the negativity between them just as much as he did at the time.

I sort of liked the subplots with Ray, Joss, and Swan, and even Nathan and the Eye Brigade. But at the same time, these characters annoy me by different degrees. Like, I was right there with Jocelyn, rolling my eyes at Swan when Ray had to bring her along. Yet Jocelyn too feels like so out of the loop that I can't respect her opinion about anything. Like, when Ray finally tells her, she lectures him about them all getting involved with this stuff, yet it feels so beyond "we're just humble tiques dealers, hurr hurr" and makes her come off as out of touch. Like she's still on last months news headlines and the world is in full swing ending since then. The Gala scene with Nathan was delightfully adrenaline pumping and frustrating in that, "Are they gonna make it!?" way. But then the rest of the time, Nathan is Kee Bickerman lite; very spacey, eccentric and never really IN the room.

Things I loved:
1. Getting to see Azazel finally. Omg, that was exactly the kind of entrance I needed from all the hype. The showdown with Adrestia too was pretty epic but I had some issues with the "artifact" plotline in this book. In any case, it was nice to finally get to see more deeply into the Group and what these people are like, to view the cookie jars they got their hands tucked into, and on top f it, to watch their sick worship of Azazel and the interaction between it and the puppets it wears on its fingers.

2. Dartham. Always. I fuckin' love Dartham so much. You know, I was fine with it, watching him sift through conversations with folks in the know in the first book and finally coming to the conclusion that thinking that hard about it wasn't something he was committed to dying over. He didn't have to be Azazel's fully consenting finger puppet in order to be a good villain and in fact, it made him more compelling to have such a strict code of honor and yet still turn away from dirty depths of corruption and just say, "Meh. I don't really care about the 'why' so let's not get into it."

This book, there's still plenty of that going on and the torture scene with Hatch is one of my favorites just because the imagery is so eerie and cool. But apparently, Dartham's willingness to be a "good soldier" extends only as far as him maintaining soldier status; once he's elevated to the guy giving orders, suddenly he's culpable for those decisions and it becomes important to him not to be a pawn for what he considers to be evil entities. Watching him go from the Boogeyman around the corner hunting Hatch down to helping move pieces to bring the Group down was a delight and very natural. The first book set down all of those subtle clues and groundwork for Dartham eventually expressing discontent with what is going on that it felt like a natural progression of his character. He's not a bad guy, not really. Nor a good guy, lol.

3. Helena was a great treat to follow in this book and I enjoyed her progression of intelligence and independence. It feels like all the lying and manipulation will come to harm her relationship with Dartham and in that way, she seems human and flawed. I guess she calculates the risk and what she thinks he might "get over" once she reveals big swaths of truth to him but I think it'll reach a point where those two will have a clash involving respect and trading one cryptic master over another. She doesn't have to act human but she needs to remember that Dartham is one and won't like being led in the dark or tricked all the time. That's not friendship, Helena, sweetie.

Things I didn't like/lukewarm stuff:
1. I did not like the way Hatch treated people in the first book and I dislike the way he treats them now. He's got this chip on his shoulder that moves around with his perspective; even when he was mad at his dad and feeling sorry for himself, it felt like he HAD to be involved with the Ferret stuff, like he couldn't let it go. As if Ferret inadvertently gave him the impression he was important when he took him in his car in the first book. Then this book, now he loves his dad who was a superhero archaeologist, and he's a "prophet" who's goddess doesn't talk to him but--any day now! So you better keep him informed! Even knowing what I know from reading the books, I was kind of on Ray's side with the way Hatch talks, glorifying himself and his place in all of this. Yet there's no proof and no help from the artifact.

2. This brings me to something I kind of had a big problem with, namely, the silence of Adrestia. On the one hand, it kind of felt poignant and real, how desperate Hatch is to make Ray and Marty believe him about the goddess touching HIM and HIM being the operator and needing to be involved. Then, like a sad little man, he goes into the basement storeroom, digging the artifact out of the buried hiding spot, sitting with her cold and silent in his hands. Like...it's just a thing. It's not an actual god, Hatch, for Christ's sake. And the inertia of the goddess artifact sort of demanded agency from all the characters who were spurred to action and choices out of necessity to merely hang onto the damned thing and keep it out of enemy hands.

Yet it was also very underwhelming after her talking to Hatch in the last book. Hatch might be left lonely and empty in that basement but we're right there with him, lethargic stewards without direction. Later on in discussing the artifact, Ferret tries to spin bullshit like quantum mechanics and predetermination is the way the artifact works with her "chosen" but in no way was that emphasized or hinted at, so, it just comes off as a copout for the dues ex machina she pulls at the right moment. Like, it's believable enough that the Group would be stupid enough to put her in their facility mere doors away from her nemesis, Azazel. You don't have to sell it to me like, "she's working through you Hatch, don't you see the bigger picture?" She could have made Dartham her hero if she really just needed a pair of fricking hands to psi-yank around to get her from lab to Azazel arena.

It was both uninteresting and interesting having her be so uninvolved for the entire book then all of a sudden she has her moment, she finally talks, and Ferret wants to wax philosophic about how she intended it all like that all along. you mean she orchestrated it so that Hatch got his brain scraped by Dartham before he had his big moral epiphany? No wonder Hatch shoved her away so insistently at the end, lol.

Even with the few things I disagreed with, I had a blast reading this. It's the best scifi espionage thriller with a firm focus on character I've ever read. I love the progression of things, even for the couple annoying characters and I cannot wait to see what happens next after that ending. Omg! I need more!

[Rachel]

I really enjoyed reading the second book of this series, and I could not put it down when I was reading it. The characters have a lot of depth, and the plot was very fast-paced and intriguing. My favorite part of this book was the development and increasing involvement of the AI, Helena. I can't wait for the third book!

[Mjk]

I flew through this book and couldn't put it down. Can't wait to see what happens next!