A Review of Theories of Flight

This is the second book in a three book series and I loved the first book so much, I had to get the next two. However, this one wasn’t quite as good as the first one, in my opinion. Still, it was pretty good and I enjoyed it.

Dr Samuil Petrovich is a scientist who has just discovered how to make anti-gravity. He works and lives in the Metrozone, which used to be London before Armageddon changed the world some 20 odd years ago. Before that, he lived in Russia. We’re never told just how he came to the Metrozone from Russia, nor how he survived Armgeddon.

In the first book, he meets a great woman named Maddie who’s an Amazonian nun with a huge gun who helps him defeat the New Machine Jihad. This book picks up four months later. And they’re married. The romantic in me had hoped to see the two of them together and I’m thrilled that they’re married. Unfortunately, the book starts out with his discovery of anti-gravity, only to have him receive a call that Maddy’s been shot — she’s in the army now. His face is all over TV, but he can’t stop to enjoy the fame — he’s got to get to the hospital. He does and she’s generally OK and actually goes back to the front lines quite soon after. Meanwhile, Sonja contacts him, as does Chaim, the old cop he barely got along with from the first book. He tells Sam that the CIA is after the technology behind the New Machine Jihad and has sent agents to the Metrozone. Unfortunately, he’s killed shortly thereafter. Then, the gist of the story starts. The Outties, the people who were barred from entering London during Armageddon and have lived in the outskirts in radiation ever since, are attacking with a force of some 200,000 people and the Metrozone army has to fight them off, and they don’t have enough forces. Sam takes his rat, his tablet I guess, and takes off across town in search of Maddie, but finds he’s on the wrong side of town and is surrounded by Outties and all of the bridges are wired to explode. Not good. He has a VR companion named Michael who he has running data crunches for him and he takes over command of the army with his help, using the US government’s own computers for computing power, as well as Wall Street’s. And then the book gets repetitive. See Sam run. Run Sam run. Watch Sam run. Sam runs. A lot. He’s shot at too, and does his share of killing people, but mostly he runs. Along the way, he gathers up a 14 year old wonder girl named Lucy as a companion, Sonja’s ninja bodyguard is killed, Valentina, a Russian mobster’s hit woman who’s helping him out, is along for the ride, and they all search for Maddie. Fruitlessly. By the end of the book, you’re banging your head against the wall, wishing the two would just get reunited to stop the damn running. However, along the way, Sam is able to keep up with his VR, command the military, stop the attack, attack the CIA agents, rescue Maddie and Lucy, who had been captured, and the end is grand. Except you don’t get to see Sam and Maddy together. She rides up on a motorcycle after he’s had a meeting with some city leaders and talks to him for a minute and then rides off. And that’s it! Very unsatisfying. I hope the third book will have more of her because she was such a great presence in the first book and I really missed her in this one. Still, it was a fun read, even with all of my complaints, and certainly recommended for any cyberpunk/sci fi fan.

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