….a nuclear bomb is aimed at the town of the Brotherhood. Cricket (once a small robot who hated being called little, but now in a powerful warbot body), Lemon Fresh and her new Deviate friends Grimm and Diesel are right in line to be annihilated.
Luckily, Lemon Fresh’s new friends have amazing powers to enable their survival along with their enemies. But they are far from safe. BioMaas wants Lemon for themselves. They repeat over and over that she is important, but it’s not until she is in their clutches that she finally understands why.
Gabriel, Faith and Eve are still working on Gabriel’s plan to free all robots, machines, and ‘slaves’ from their three rules of life. Once infected with the virus that will free them, they will have free will and not be bound to humankind anymore. Gabriel’s true desire is to find what he needs to rebuild or more to the facts – regrow his true love – Grace. All the while as another waits for him to notice her.
As these Lifelikes, humans, and warbots survive one battle after another in their separate missions, BioMaas and Daedalus are heading into war – each with their secret weapons.
Loyalty from one group to another shifts as a new war looms over them all.
Action packed from beginning to end, this third book in the Lifelik3 trilogy is a rapidly stirred pot of loyalties, love, human against Lifelike, Robot against human, mother against son, Lifelike against Lifelike, and two giant tech entities against each other.
Love is a strong theme – there is romantic love, platonic love, robot for human, human for robot, unrequited love, a love for ultimate power and love for the entire human race.
The relationships between characters still evolve and grow, but betrayal is still lurking. The world building is astonishing (BioMaas is beautiful), and the use of Deviates powers, thrilling.
A fitting end to a butt kicking trilogy, set in a world nearly disintegrated by human’s past wars against each other.
Author – Jay Kristoff
Age – 13+
SHORT-LISTED: Aurealis Awards, Best Young Adult Novel, 2020
(2022, Allen & Unwin, Action, Love, Dystopian, Romance, Murder, War, Series, Robots, Machines, AI, Revenge, Betrayal, Blended Family, Future, Virus, Free Will, Revenge, Trilogy, Sacrifice)