Rating: 5 out of 5
‘The Air War’, focussing on conflict at Collegium, is probably my favourite title thus far in the series. From my original read, I kind of remembered more of how the war developed throughout this part, but even so it’s a very good chapter in the Apt series: especially seeing how much the crux seems to depend on the Inapt.
So what makes this a good title? We see precious little of character development (perhaps excluding Stenwold which I’ll touch upon below), but there’s a lot of action throughout the title. Some of it seems actually unnecessary: I can see why it was worthwhile to send Stenwold to Myna, but having Taki follow him there didn’t serve any useful purpose whatsoever. But as soon as the action comes to Collegium, which is approximately half-way into the book, the focus is on fighting in the air (what Taki is very good at). There’s precious little tactics throughout this, but a lot of combat even so. Naturally, the air war itself follows certain patterns which become somewhat tiresome, but the author tries to alleviate this—which is not to say that he is perfectly successful in this—by looking at how some of the aviators cope.
The characters? Maybe they learn something through the battles, but in most cases it doesn’t really seem to be true. The original start at the Prowess Forum makes it look like the start of the saga, but it quickly deviates on another path. The young beetle (Eujen) and his group that we meet is in many ways a copy of Stenwold in his youth (and more so than Che in her youth, i.e., at the start of the saga), but the world around them has changed a lot. It’s clear that the group goes through a lot in this title, but it’s not nearly as apparent without having Stenwold there, looking at who he has become, and seeing his thoughts about what should be done with the war. Many very interesting and difficult moral questions are raised in this, making it perhaps the second most interesting part of the title.
Suffice to say, I’ve started on the next one.
