wulvaen's Reviews (313)

I'm not crying! You're crying! 😭

What an end. What. An. End.
God this book was amazing, it never stopped being gripping, it was thrilling from the very beginning until the end.
This was one of the best of Asimov.

This felt like a true space adventure story, it felt like Indiana Jones or something, but in space, not necessarily the tone of Indy, but the feeling of exploration.
Again Asimov perfectly utilised Trevise and Pelorat as narrative pieces and the gateway to world building, having one teach us about spaceflight and planetology and the other about history and mythology, and both efforts are VITAL in this incredible feeling of exploration.

Because they were in search of Earth, and all records on it have been removed from all civilisations, that meant we need Pel's experience and keen insight to paint the picture for us and help piece together all that has happened between the Robots series and Foundation.

And then, equally important, we needed Trev's experience and knowledge to make us really feel like they were searching for Earth, going as far as analysing the make-up of each planet, it's position in the solar system, it's size and other factors to determine if it could support life.
Fuck-ing awe-some.

And then we had Bliss accompanying the boys this time, and her character was a bit hit and miss for me. When Trev is around and they are having philosophical dialogues and debating morality, it's incredible. When Trev is not around, she's one-dimensional and is there to be the moral authority.

Another character that became a regular on the ship is

Fallom. This was a character I thought was more than what met the eye, but I was wrong. I genuinely thought the child was the true villain and was under the guise of a child and had maneuvered that whole fiasco on Solarian so the gang would take her with them. Given Trevs instinctual hostility towards her, I was genuinely convinced it was another one of Trev's "tingles" where he was right but had no idea how or why he was. Alas, she was no villain and was exactly ash she appeared to be, and I feel like that entire aspect of the book was so manufactured to add a level of What If to the journey and I must say it felt cheap. While it was fun to revisit Solaria again and delve deeper into their unusual way of life they cultivated in his Robots series and how they had evolved over the 20,000 years, I do think Asimov focused on it way too much and added unnecessary complexities. It wasted the readers time, basically.

.

The ending was outstanding, the reveal of

Daneel Olivaw

literally made me cry.

His entire story arch in the Robots series was so emotional and beautiful, and seeing how after 20,000 years he still held Elijah Baley in his heart and mind and still fought for the safety and betterment of humanity was extremely touching and beautiful.
...thennnnn it sorta got a bit tainted with the solution to bringing about Galaxia was they he had to essentially kill the child Fallom and merge their brains so he can stay functioning for another few centuries to shephard Galaxia into being. Daneel legit has to kill/merge with a human child. For fuck sake, that's really the solution? It didn't make much sense to me and was such a let down.

I really thought when they finally reached their destination, that the man they'd see standing waiting for them would have been

Hari Seldon.

Then I thought Daneel was actually Hari Seldon and he played that role to help start psychohistory, the Seldon plan and the foundations. I was partially correct, it wasn't Seldon, but Daneel did bring about Psychohistory.

Got I felt so intellectually stimulated majority of the time reading this book and was fascinated and felt immersed in the discovery processes.

However, I do have some criticisms! 
ASIMOV. STOP. STOP ADDING UNNECESSARY ROMANCES (yes I'm aware he's dead) AND JESUS CHRIST MATE STOP WITH THE WHOLE WOMAN MEETS GUY AND WANTS TO FUCK HIM IMMEDIATELY STUFF! I'm not even kidding! TWICE! TWICE I THE SAME BOOK! Trevise met two women on this book and both of them in the first few minutes had sex with him. Later it gets excused as

Daneel

influencing their already present attraction to Trevise so they would aid him in his journey.
Bullshit.
Also, Bliss and Trevise literally had the same debates and arguments OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. That's insane. Definitely contributed to the feeling that this book was way longer than it needed to be.

While I loved the connecting of Robots and Foundation, I do feel like Asimov almost abandoned the Foundation factions and Hari Seldon and his plan. This felt like he was merging Robots and Foundation together and was sacrificing parts that made these books Foundation books and made it more like a Robots book. I don't like how the book just ends with too many loose ends and us knowing it is essentially the last book and the end of the road. The other two books are prequels and I'd assume don't reveal what happens after Foundation and Earth.
And when I say this book just ends, I really mens it literally. It just ends during a conversation at the end, with an ominous sentence, and we'll never know anything more.
Fuck you Asimov, you beautiful evil bastard.

There was one theory I had that has not been confirmed or denied in this book!
Golan Trevise, is descended from Elijah Baley.
I am convinced, 100%, this is the case.
I remembered back to the Robots series that Baley had this verrrrryy uncanny knack for jumping to the right conclusions seemingly out of nowhere and his brain was like a supercomputer of sorts except he acted like a detective columbo and he also had some anger issues at times. Similarly enough with Trevise! Except he's mostly just grumpy 😂
I am convinced! And because I believe this to be true, it made the reveal at the end so much more emotional 😭

Now I'm onto Prelude to Foundation.
Oh also a tip for anyone wanting to read all the books in order, for his Galactic Empire series, despite The Stars, Like Dust coming out a year before The Currents of Space and it being listed as book 1 and 2, they are actually the other way around in chronological order! The Currents of Space actually is set before The Stars, Like Dust.
So if anyone reading this is planning reading all his Robots, Galactic Empire and Foundation books in chronological order, now you know 😉

For fuck sake 😑

So, after reading all his Robot, Galactic Empire and the first four books of his Foundation series, I have come up with a term I'd like to coin to describe Asimov's "isms".
While Brandon Sanderson has a "Sanderlanche", there is something Isaac Asimov has that I'd like to call an "Asimov Moment".

So, what's an Asimov Moment? It's when he stops writing like a storyteller and starts writing like a historian / scientist and stops showing and starts telling. It's the moment he vomits out exposition dumps because he knew you didn't have a fucking clue what was happening. It's when you say to yourself "oh wow! That's so cool! What an awesome concept! If only I could have possibly guessed this with the aid of foreshadowing and better writing".

All of the worst aspects of Asimov's books I have mentoned before are all present in this book and have completely took over the jungle:

This was by far the worst book I have read from him so far. I had zero connection to most characters, the main character is extremely unlikeable and one of the most stupid characters I've ever read, he's also selfish and vicious and COMPLETELY MANIC. I've never read such a manic character, in fact, this whole goddamn book was manic! It was all over the place. The random outburst from characters, the gigantic random leaps of logic with fuck all foreshadowing, and it all has to make sense with exposition dumps.

This book, right here, is every terrible Asimovism combined into one big mess and disappointment. The concept for this book, as usual, was AMAZING! And the moral messaging at the end was excellent, how monitoring reality and making alterations to prevent harm and disaster makes humanity so coddled and protected that they never evolve and grow. This entire book was both a warning to parents not to overprotective their kids and let them leave home (or, in the case of humanity in this book, leave earth and explore the stars) so they can reach their full potential and be happy.
I very much love the metaphor and the concept, but the Asimov moments were so prevalent and servere in this book that it completely destroyed the concept and what incredible impact it could have had on us.

This hurts me even more as I just came from my favourite book from him and his best book so far imo, Pebble In The Sky. I have literally just went from reading his best book to his worst book, and I have a big case of whiplash. So disappointing.
I wanted to give this book 2 stars, but added an extra 0.75 because the concept and moral metaphors at the end were brilliant. 

An easy 5 stars!!!

God what a book, easily one of my favorites, the concept and execution was incredible.
While there are still some recycling of plots Asimov has done before

(such as someone of importance to the plot losing their memory and fumbling around while people try to get them for their own political purposes and they regain their memory over time which helps solve everything, which is precisely what happened in the previous book. Also subplot of two people on opposing sides falling in love when it would be culturally inappropriate in the in-book universe, something he's done 3 or 4 times already)

, it was all executed brilliantly that I don't give a shit about the recycling.

As someone halfway through the Foundation books and started reading this series due the recent revelation of its connection to the Robots and Foundation series, I immensely enjoyed how Schwartz' character grew throughout the book.

Him discovering his mental abilities was amazing, the theories it evoked in me to how the galaxy evolved from Schwartz, was Hari Seldon of Foundation aware of Schwartz and his mental abilities and factored them into his plans for the Second Foundation? Did they have the same machine and made the original Second Foundation Psychohistorians telepathic like Schwartz? Or did he collect individuals descended from him? And now I'm curious about Gaia from the Foundation's Edge book, how did they come to be? They hinted at Robots teaching the humans telepathy, but is that true? Or more Chinese whispers of history? Are the Gaians descendants of Schwartz or did the machine get used on others?

This is the kind of shit Asimov should be inspiring in the reader with each book; his incredible ideas should be baked in with descriptive prose that you don't need a PhD to actually understand. He often writes like a historian/scientist and often forgets to write like a storyteller, however in this book he achieved equilibrium and expertly conveyed such an incredible story with the perfect blend of storytelling, science and humanity.

I really felt the characters in this book, and the ideas at play, and the world building is the best I've seen so far from him. For once it felt like he described how the society was so different and yet similar to what us readers live in; the local restaurant you can get a full meal for by putting a coin in the machine and how the packaging automatically opens itself and then heats itself up, being a prime example.

Most characters actually felt unique and we were were able to gauge what type of person they were, what felt consistent with their characters and the character dynamics at play were very well executed. The romance was again extremely one-dimensional and forced, and, as in most cases I've found with Asimov's works, completely unnecessary to the book (I think Asimov has a self imposed rule that a story can't be a real story unless someone falls in love in a few chapters and blurts "I love you" out of nowhere, it is getting unbearable at this point).
AND! And! The names weren't shit! The character names were actually pretty decent and felt like actually names, instead of how they usually feel like they came from a sci-fi name generator 😂 

Overall, this was one of his best I've read, a huge improvement over the other books in this series.
It was gripping from start to finish.

So, I'll cut right to the meat of it, the first 50% of this book was confusing, boring and soul sucking, with little sprinkles of interesting character work and moments.
But really, majority of the first 50% was sending me into a reading slump and depressing me.

The premise was really interesting:
A science man has discovered that an important planet and all it's inhabitants will be destroyed. Said planet is the only pure source of the most valuable and versatile material in the known universe and a barbaric civilisation controls it and is so powerful due to its possession, harvesting and trading of this material.
Said man has his memory wiped and thrown on the dangerous planet and made to work as a slave, essentially. Man starts to remember, all sorts of politics come into play with different people and factions all trying to find said man as they're all looking for some edge in the bid for control of the valuable planet and to gain majority power in the galaxy.
Doesn't sound half bad at all, does it?
It actually sounds like it could be pretty epic, filled with tense moments and juicy political intrigue.
But no, it wasn't like that, it was badly executed and Asimov managed to make a brilliant setup, shite.

I've come to realise that Asimov writes like a historian trying his arm at writing science fiction novels. He writes so inconsistently, and this goes for his other books too, the quality of writing never ever stays consistent and he eventually has a streak of brilliant and engaging writing, and then breaks the flow somehow and goes back to writing boring and clinical writing.
Its really annoying at this point, the man writes the best when he's writing his best, and writes some of the worst when he's at his worst.

So, back to the book.
The second half of the book was a massive improvement, with characters meeting, certain hidden details, such as people and actions, coming to light and just overall better writing, pacing and engaging situations.
It finally got interesting and things were making sense.

The quality of the Second half was so good that it saved this review being between a 1 and 2 stars, which was definitely heading that direction.

But, again, while the robots series and this are connected and aren't outright told to us that is the case, that's fine, because they're seperate series and I feel that is acceptable.
But, book 1 and book 2 of a series should not feel like they're not even part of the same series, which happened BAD here.
Suddenly we're talking about Sark and Trantor in this book and Trantor has hundreds of worlds part of their republic, where did that come from?
There's no mention of any of the planets or factions from the first book, such as Tyrann, Rhodia or Lingane. I can only assume the Rhodians evolved into Trantorians over the years as they had the US constitution as the basis of a Galactic Republic?

But, yes, again, this did not feel like the second book in a series, but a standalone set in the same universe as Robots and Foundation.

Please, for fuck sake Asimov, be consistent in book 3, PLEASE?! It has an amazing premise going by the description, please be good! 🙏

Pretty generic, but with a strong start

So I read this book as I read all the Robots series and read up to Foundation's Edge and realised this series and The End of Eternity were connected with those two series in this big interconnected galactic history.

This book starts in a great way, it was intriguing and captivating. It drew me in, we were swept in with Biron into this conspiracy mystery concerning a possible rebellion and political schemes. Not exactly original but still intriguing (although given the year this book was written, perhaps it was original enough back then in sci-fi literature 🤔).

I was very much enjoying the book up until a specific point, when Biron gets on a Tyrranian ship with Gilbert and Artemesia. From that point on, I witnessed the the speediest executed forced romance subplot. In the space of a couple of short chapters, Asimov had Biron and Artemesia saying I love you, having ridiculous arguments fueled by stubbornness and breaking up and her trying to get with someone else, all while much larger concerns were present. And then we're led to believe Biron planned some of that and deliberately pushed her to the Autarch to see if his theory of the Autarch's treachery was so. And after he explained it to her, she went back to him with no problems at all even though he used her like a pawn. Yet, they argued all the time before that point and we so petty and stubborn towards eachother over the smallest things just like children. Yet, she easily forgives something like this. It is inconsistent and lazy. This all happened so quickly, they met, don't like eachother but there's a slight attraction, then they kiss, then say I love you, then break up ("part of plan") then get back together, then married. This all happened in the space of days within the book. Absolutely ridiculous. It's like watching a soap opera on TV and people say I Love You after 2 dates and happily ever after. Absolutely ridiculous 😂

That ridiculous romance subplot did retract from the quality of the book immensely for me, I think Asimov should have stuck to what he knows and is good at: Science Fiction, not Romance.
So much time and effort was put on a forced romance that there should have been more focus on the world building and characters.

The twist at the end was okayish, felt like it has been done many times before by this author.
Onto book 2 now, hopefully it's much better.

BY FAR THE BEST BOOK SO FAR!

Holy fucking shit! I'VE SO MUCH TO SAY, but I can't put them into words 😂

So let me start with the best decision Asimov made: this book is not split into parts, but is one continuous story. The previous books were split into parts and it was always at the point of transitioning into the next part that the book would crumble for a while before building up to good quality and engaging story. Those breaks in the flow have been debilitating. This book was incredible and will be in my list of favourites, it was engaging, thrilling and interesting from start to finish.

The way the book started was straight off the cuff engaging. I loved it.
The two main characters Goran Trevize and Janov Pelorat had so much depth to them and I loved their interactions together.
I loved how adventurous this book felt, I felt like I was growing with the characters and piecing together the mysteries that surrounded us.

I loved how Pel was used as a narrative device to introduce the reader to the way of life of those who explored space, and how Trev was used as a narrative device to introduce the reader to the different worlds and cultures and human behaviours. They were both used as narrative devices in their interactions with eachother to further the understanding and depth of the world Asimov has crafted. Brilliant! But on top of that, as characters themselves, they stand out and I could feel the type of person they each were, they felt real and full of breath.

I loved how both foundations were portrayed, in flawed states with mixes of arrogance, ambition, incompetence and complacency, underestimating eachother.

The overarching mystery of a possible third galactic faction at play who were more adept at mentalics, was amazing, finally a possible threat to all of Seldon's plan.

The world of Gaia was amazing. The mystery surrounding it, the constant "What ifs" and speculation inspired in the reader thanks to the thoughts and theories of the two main characters and the two foundational factions, was brilliantly executed.

As for Gaia itself, wow. Just, wow.
Around the 30% point if this book I had a stray thought: What if Asimov's Robots series was connected to the Foundation series and the Robots series is set in Foundations past on earth? Turns out, I WAS RIGHT! And it turns out I missed a book! His book "The End of Eternity is also set before Foundation and apparently the Robots of the Robots series evolved into cosmic (or at least cosmic aware) beings called Eternals, which is what The End of Eternity is set during. I'm now going to read the book now instead of the next Foundation book so I can fully understand the next books. EDIT: ....just found out there's another series from him, the Galactic Empire series, with three books, set before End of Eternity...so there's 4 books I gotta read in total before I read Foundation and Earth 👀
But yeah, that twist, where I found out the Robots series and Foundationwere connected, was brilliantly executed, the second Dom the Gaian started talking about the three laws of robots I literally stood from my seat shouting "I KNEW IT!" 🤣

This was by far the best Foundation book I've read so far. I'm blown away.
So why is it not a 5 star? BECAUSE THE NAMES ARE STILL STUPID AND RIDICULOUS! 🤣
There's a guy called Littoral Thoobing. Seriously. That's his name. Absolutely ridiculous. Every time Asimov comes out with a character with a ridiculously stupid and unmemorble name, it takes me out of my immersion and engagement. Ridiculous 😂
Edit: I've changed my mind, the book is 5 star 🌟🤣 

Tldr: 🫤

Well, these Foundation books so far are so inconsistent with it's quality.
There's always some great and captivating moments that have me on the edge of my seat, and the rest are absolutely dreadful, dull and boring.

An issue I had with the first book and didn't mention was present in the second book but is again quite prevalent here is that majority of the characters are so indistinctive, lacking depth and individuality.

And fuck me their names! Why are the character names in this series SO FUCKING TERRIBLE?
All the names so far in this series have been goddamn awful, like as if they came from an online sci-fi name generator.
I'm going to list some names:

Absolutely horrendous, they are completely unmemorable. And it's even worse because it's every few chapters that a few new characters with unmemorable names and unremarkable personalities are introduced and then never seen again. This makes the whole thing so disjointed.
So what makes them so unremarkable? Because they all speak the same and act the same. All they do is political or scientific dumps.

So, again, this book was split into two parts,
1.) Search by the Mule
2.) Search by the Foundation.
And, again, part one is incredible and part two is a big mixed bag with sprinkles of goodness.

For part one, it was the best of the book, seriously, it was captivating, thrilling, interesting and just down right awesome. One thing though, this was to be the conclusion to the ending cliffhanger of the previous book, and I think that was a terrible decision. Part one of this book was so short, and it could have been left at the end of the previous book as a part three or something. This felt like two different books in one.

Part two, however, was just meh.
The apparent twist at the end I figured out around the 40% mark.
It had great potential, seriously, these group of conspirators against rhe Second Foundation had to try to find them and navigate around their possible influence while not knowing what could be influenced by the Second Foundation. Introducing that doubt, could have made an incredible element across the book or focused on more.

There even could have been this awesome faux-twist where they are convinced there's no Second Foundation and they were a figment to be a boogeyman to prevent action against the First Foundation, and the anomalies found in people's brains with the Encephalograph could actually be acolytes or descendants of The Mule with the same mutant ability as him, trying to take down the Foundation in secret. That was totally a theory of mine and could have been a good narrative feint or red herring.

So, part one was amazing, part two was meh, and majority of this book was part two, therefore this is a 3.5 rating. If part one wasn't as amazing, I'd be scoring this a 3 or lower.

Now I'm back to feeling how I did at the end of the first book, slightly dreading reading the next book. 

I legit feel like this: 🫤

Holy fucking shit, what an ending!

I'll start by saying this book was a huge improvement over the first book, for most of the book, however it is in the middle of the book when it regressed to the first book's poorer quality.

The book was in two parts, The General gripped me pretty quickly, the story of

the problem of Bel Riose and Brodrig, and the brilliance of Lathan Devers and Ducem Barr trying to stop them by using Imperial Politics, and out of instinct came to the same solution Seldon's Psychohistory had, that the way to solve the crisis was to fuel the Emperor's paranoia of being overthrown by popular generals and have him eliminate Bel Riose himself. And even though Devers and Barr's plan to cause this failed, their sheer presence near the Emperor and the fact they left, fueled his paranoia enough for him to do what they wanted anyway, solving their problem for them without him even knowing it. Seldon's Psychohistory did not fail.

Absolutely fucking awesome!


As for The Mule, this was where some of the best and worst parts of the book were for me and where the story got boring and muddled, but there were little nuggets of excellence and an incredible ending with a dirty twist I fucking loved!

It followed a married couple, Toran (of the Traders) and Beyta (of the Foundation) and how they met a mysterious Jester who was held captive by a new threat, a Mutant called The Mule. He was quickly conquering territories and was clearly heading to capture the Foundation.

Towards the end, I thought I had figured it all out, thought I had followed all the breadcrumbs of foreshadowing and I was a little Sherlock Holmes with my pipe,

I thought Magnifico's Visi-Sonor was the actual power behind The Mule's control of people. I thought he had his own machine and was using it to control people. That's why he sought Magnifco, because he knew he wasn't a Mutant and his control came from technology, not a mutation. I thought Magnifco using his machine to kill the prince and his men on Neotrantor was proof of that, that it did more than we knew and it could affect human biology. It explained everything!

....then the truth came to light, and Magnifco was The Mule, using the Derrells to travel to Foundation and meet influential people that run all these places and warp their minds to his needs. The reason Toran went out of his way to save a stranger, Magnifico, in the first place was because he was controlled to do so. Magnifco was the Mule all along, and it makes perfect sense, and I'm a dummy for not putting it together myself. He was often so annoying that I found myself in disbelief all these characters put up with him, now it makes sense, their emotions were manipulated.
But the real twist, the real cherry on the cake, was how irony foiled The Mule's plans. He was foiled by his own emotions, because he found someone who truly cared about him without emotional manipulation, and he wanted to cherish that feeling forever, and so he never manipulated or read the emotions of Beyta, which meant he didn't realise at the end she had figured it out and planned to kill Mis to stop The Mule from hearing the location of the Second Foundation. And she figured it out in the first place because he killed the prince without even touching him and used his "Visi-Sonor" to do so, because he had made veiled threats of rape and forcing Beyta to be his woman, which, naturally, infuriated Magnifco and caused him to kill him. That's why, it was his own emotions, which he could not control, that destroyed his plans.

Absolutely fucking beautiful and what a brilliant twist!

That ending alone has me dying to read book 3, which I'm starting in 3....2....1......bye 👋

As a massive fan of Asimov's Robots series, this was extremely disappointing.
Perhaps those expectations tainted my feelings towards this book, but regardless, that's how I feel.

This book was on par with some of the later Dune books. The reader is flooded with names and terms and colloquialisms we have no understanding of and are expected to understand what we're reading straight from the start, same crime as the later Dune books.

The names of characters are so unmemorable and even some of the characters acted the same, it was hard to differentiate between the different characters, and their unmemorable names didn't help at all.

The premise itself was interesting but very similar to Dune:

a book in which you follow the history through hundreds of years of human societal growth. You had a Galactic Empire projected to fall, and a man who has figured out how to save it, same as Leto II from Dune, you also had the use of religion to manipulate society towards said saving.

Honestly, God Emperor of Dune did it better.

I'm moving onto book 2 now, there were some good parts of this book, specially the second half, which leads me to hope the books will improve from here, but alas, not a great start. 

This is my second read of the book and I previously rated it a 5/5.

This time I have to dock some marks as I read all the secret projects again back-to-back this time, and this felt like the second weakest of the four books (1. Yumi, 2. Tress, 3. Sunlit, 4. Frugal Wizard). Its funny, it's funny how your memeries can distort over time, I used to think this was my favourite secret project book, but now it's changed to Yumi and the Nightmare Painter.

The Sunlit Man did a lot of interesting things, had some great characters, an interesting world and some awesome character development. I enjoyed the dynamics between the characters, much more than I did in Yumi, however the biggest fuck up in terms of character was The Cinder King. He was the most lazy, one-dimensional villain I've read in a while. You barely know anything about him, there's no effort to make you understand him any more than he's insecure and loves power.

I enjoyed Elegy's character arc, her dynamic with Nomad was very unique and interesting, it felt like an old war veteran trying to help rehabilitate and coach someone who'd got back from a war and was struggling to adjust to civilised society without a battle to fight. I thought it was beautiful and very cathartic for Nomad, as it he was not just healing her, but also himself.

Rebeke was interesting enough, someone who'd been in her sisters shadow for so long and was never even resentful of it. After her sister was "gone", she was felt like and was treated like a cousin of a famous person, some remnant of greatness, not their own person. It was lovely seeing her come out of her shell and find her own place in this world.

Aux was my favourite, for someone without emotion or feeling, he sure had plenty of personality. His character was akin to depictions we've seen of someone who'd lost their way somehere down the road of life after suffering a tragedy, and the ghost of someone they know is there, talking to them, pitying who they are, understanding it, but trying their best to support them and hoping some semblance of who they are comes back one day. In this scenario, Nomad is the lost soul, and Aux is his ghost.

Nomad was a very interesting character for me, I felt him deeply. His story was akin to depictions of immortals hundreds or thousands of years old, who grow tired of life, but must keep going on, keep moving, because they've no choice, and they avoid connections because they've seen so much death and destruction of those they care about. That felt very much like Nomad for me. Except in this case, he's (maybe) not mourning someone he has cared for (apart from Aux I mean), but more for the man he used to be. He's full of so much shame and self-hatred and tries to convince himself he's not that man anymore and tries to not care, but he does, deep down.

I very much loved the characters in this book, but alas where it falls short, is the world itself.
This book might have been the best if the secret Projects of the world was given more effort in its descriptions and immersion, but it just didn't feel much like a living breathing world to me. I can't quite place what felt off here, but I look back on the other three books and all of their settings felt alive to me, even Frugal Wizard.

If the world was given more treatment and care, and felt as immersive as the other books, this book would have been tied with Yumi for me, but the world is indeed interesting, just needed a bit more.