[REVIEW] Dave's TF Novel Rant: Annihilation

Dave's Book Rant:

     Transformers: Annihilation (Book 2)

     This one was delayed by several months, probably because Ciencin was
yanked and new author David Cian had to scramble to get it written.  Took me
a few weeks after release to get it, since my initial pre-order had been
canceled when the book was pushed back, and I wasn't informed.  And then I
delayed a bit in reading it, since after Hardwired I wasn't exactly eager to
dive back in to this storyline.

CAPSULE

     Where Hardwired had grand ideas and bad execution, Annihilation seems to
be content to bring the story in for a safe landing.  Better written, but not
as ambitious.  Also much better-edited.  Mildly recommended.
$6.99/$10.50Cn/#5.99UK 

RANT

     I haven't made a careful counting of it, but I think everything in this
book takes place over the course of three or four days.  Ciencin left such a
convoluted mess at the end of Hardwired that just resolving it in a
satisfactory manner took a great deal of effort and several reasonably subtle
retcons.  The body count is much-reduced, and the deaths we do see tend to be
a lot less graphic.

     Thing is, while Cian clearly left open threads to be addressed in book
3, this is a trilogy only in that there are three books planned.  The Keeper
plot peaked too early, in part because the ending of Hardwired left a
situation that simply could not be credibly stretched over two more books
without making Annihilation a completely unsatisfying "bridge" with no
beginning and no resolution.  So things are resolved, but the thread
connecting the three books is now pretty thin.

     As for Cian's efforts here, they felt a lot like damage control.  The
metaphor that continued to come to mind as I read this book was that Ciencin
had driven the bus out into the middle of nowhere in hopes of showing us some
really cool stuff, but gotten lost...then Cian was asked to just get us home
safely.  The book is engaging enough, but it has to spend so much time
explaining why the events of Hardwired weren't stupid that it doesn't do as
much on its own.

     On a technical level, this was a much tighter book.  The kind of sloppy
proofreading errors that inundated Hardwired are almost absent here...I
didn't even notice any until the last few chapters, which simply might not
have had time for repeated passes before publication like the earlier
chapters.  Characterization is consistent with what has gone before, except
where explanations are being made for bad characterization in Hardwired
(although, frankly, I don't think excuses had to be made for Starscream's
plan in Hardwired...it may have been militarily bad, but it was
sociologically sound).

     Finally, a quick plot summary.  A few of the battles still running at
the end of Hardwired play out among the shocked new arrivals, and Megatron
goes after Starscream.  Starscream manages to force Megatron into conceding
leadership of the Decepticons to him, as meanwhile the Keepers issue an
ultimatum to Earth as a whole, making Los Angeles vanish to make their
point.  Everyone splits up at this point to consider things (Megatron leaves
the Decepticons and takes several with him, others remain with Starscream)
while the Keepers and Followers each work out how to proceed.  Along the way,
Starscream and the human Melony are added to the ranks of shells inhabited by
Keepers, and all three figure out ways to escape the imprisonment of their
minds in time for the Big Fight.  During the Big Fight, the President has a
nuke lobbed at Las Vegas, and Prime pulls out a plot device to save everyone
and defeat the Keepers.  Then Megatron decides to call in his marker (Prime
agreed to owe him a favor back in Hardwired), setting up the threat for book
3.  

     Oh, a lot of character and background stuff happened along the way, and
the Final Fates of several characters are still uncertain, but it was still
pretty much "Fight, regroup, fight again".  Cian generally showed he'd done
his homework on stuff, but unlike Ciencin did not feel compelled to datadump
the results all over the place, which made things a lot more readable.

     Overall, it's a decent book, but no great shakes, and it spends a lot of
its time cleaning up after Hardwired.  If it's hackwork, it's at least
competent hackwork with good intentions.

     Dave Van Domelen, somehow doubts the current President in the TFverse is
gonna get re-elected....