Blackout is about moving on after trauma, coping with loss, and fighting monsters within and without, where every decision costs time and blood. Deadline felt like trying to breathe, Blackout is a defiant scream and headlong charge.

The balance between closing existing plot threads and establishing/closing new ones is very good. The resolution makes sense without feeling inevitable and there are some truly stunning scenes that build rich and tiny worlds which will only be visited once before they’re gone. This is my favorite book of the original trilogy (Deadline is good, but it’s very much the first half of Blackout’s story and it suffers a little for it), and I’m looking forward to checking out Feedback next.