I was uncomfortable with the moral stance of this one (turns out so was the author). Wonder where this series is heading. ( )

"Atlas Alone" is the story of a former corporate slave (literally) on a spaceship headed towards a distant planet, humanity's new hope. She is burdened with secret knowledge that someone on board committed genocide before they left Earth, knowledge she has no way to act on until some anonymous hacker on board starts infiltrating her virtual reality games, offering to help her get revenge.

Newman's ability to keep the final two or three chapters' worth of story almost entirely obfuscated throughout the reading experience to get there keeps impressing me, novel by novel. Having consumed unknown thousands of stories in my life, I'm used to at this point having a fairly decent sense, subconsciously or consciously, as to what any given story is headed towards -- even with the ones I love. Newman dances around this intuitive expectation rather brilliantly, with snappy, almost shockingly quick finales in each of these 'Planetfall' novels, that usually focuses on some seemingly tertiary aspect of the story I wasn't quite realising would turn out to be its focus. And yet, it always works.

That's not to say some twists aren't telegraphed and can be predicted (I saw one of the main ones in this book coming a mile away, for instance), but the _direction_ of the story, more than the actual reveals, is always something satisfyingly other than what I'd have first thought. "Atlas Alone" is very much following in this tradition, with perhaps the most chillingly unexpected final twist yet, in my eyes. (And, endearingly, both darker and less dark than what I _was_ sort of expecting, at the same time,)

With this novel, what has only been hinted at in the previous installments becomes rather clear: All of the (fairly standalone) novels in this series are pointing towards some kind of explosive mutual convergence. I'd be very excited to read that, should Newman ever get to write it. Because based on these four, she definitely knows what she's doing. ( )

For me, the weakest of the series so far (though given I still rated it a solid 4 stars, it's by no means weak). That ending though, HOLY CRAP. ( )

Space opera, post-apocalyptic, with a bunch of interesting VR/immersive games, advanced technology, dystopia, cults, and essentially sociopathic characters. Maybe more of a 4.5, but well written, interesting characters, and engaging themes. ( )

Nice twist. ( )