#4

I read this one out of order, after #3 and #4 because they were in Volume 2, but now I'm filled in the missing backstory. This settles the question whether the stories are readable as standalones, yes they are, but reading in order helps to understand the references to past murderbot mayhem, and uncomfortable human feeeelings, and ships passing in the night encounters with other bottish, whoa re the real stars (or guest stars, as there seems to be a different non-recurring set in each episode), with distinctive personalities. The humans all kind of blur together for me, and generally they're idiots (I'm starting to sound like murderbot). One thing I feel obliged to note, the term for sexbots is uncomfortably reminiscent of the term used for forced prostitutes in WWII, which is either cleverly deliberate or unintentionally disturbing (like the confederacy overtones in Firefly, although I suppose that could have been cleverly deliberate). Anyway, back on track and on to #5.

After book #4, I had pretty low expectations for this one. But it turned out to be really, really good. I loved it.

In this book, Astra & co go (uninvited) to Japan. Japan's method of dealing with supers is very different from the US, and more than a little affected by manga & anime. All supers are required to required to register with the government and undergo training, and all superhero teams are sponsored by the government. Anyone who doesn't register is called a ronin, and can be arrested on sight. Both heroes and ronin have fan clubs that gleefully dissect every scrap of news media about them, must like like modern idol groups.

(All this isn't just because the goverment feels like it -- the country is regularly besieged by kaiju and other threats. It needs a strong, coordinated defense.)

But Hope's life seems to depend on finding someone who seems to be hiding in Japan, so after a conversation that Never Happened with a high-ranking US government official she decides to infiltrate Japan. Of course her closest friends insist on coming with her, and the team "mislays" some very useful resources in her direction.

While in Japan, then help. They make up secret ronin identities, and when they run across a problem they do what they can to help. It just... feels good? Feels lighter than the other books? There's no angry protests against supers, or demagogues stirring up hate. There's no wondering if friends are secretly traitors. There's no impossible crush to angst over. There is, however, much fun with Japanese idol culture.

Overall it just feels like a good, hopeful superhero story, and when it's over, it's done. Officially the Japanese government has no idea who these Three Remarkable Ronin were, though clearly they perished in valiantly defending the country and so their memory should be honored. And also clearly these three lost American tourists should be returned home with no fuss.

This is book #4 in the series, but it's not the fourth part. Apparently there's a short story, "Omega Night", and it contained both plot and character developments that significantly impact this book. However, even on the official author's website it's not listed between books 3 and 4. It's listed after the final book, among other "related works".

And the author doesn't really do a good job of recapping what happened, it's just an abrupt jump, and now Hope/Astra's angsting over a new crush that started during that book, freaking out over a danger to one of her friends that's due to events in that book, and a number of other sudden changes.

And these changes continue to casually come up over the course of the entire book, so that put a serious damper on my enjoyment of it.

Beyond that, the premise/setting was unique and somewhat interesting, but a lot of it felt like repeating "same song, different verse." Just marking things off a checklist. Astra has a crush that she doesn't want to act on (thankfully not the same one as at the end of book #3). Astra asks for advice, then ignores it in a way that could cause trouble for the one who gave it. Astra manages to get separated from her team (but thankfully not abducted this time). Astra makes mistakes and spends time berating herself. Important rules get massively broken but a loophole means it's okay. And the Perfect Defenses get destroyed via the most plausible method, which somehow no-one saw coming.

I did really like that, after introducing a terrifying Islamic terrorist supervillain in book #1, the author chose to introduce a character that showcases the more peaceful side of Islam. I wish the character was ongoing, but it doesn't look like he will be.

I really didn't like the friend drama for this book - it felt pretty contrived, but Astra was utterly poleaxed. Honestly, the number of times something relatively trivial knocks Astra so off her stride that she can't think straight for several days should probably be cause for serious concern among the team leadership.