OK, so I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for this, since I wanted a paperback version. Audible has just put a load of audio books up for free, and so I listened to it instead of actually getting it into my hands (which would have been my preferred way).
I now don't think I'll be picking up the paperback. Having read through this whole thread it feels like I'm one of the only people who didn't actually like this book.
Some of the concepts were great, and some of the death scenes were awesome, but by that point I'd stopped caring about the characters that were dying.
The shock deaths of main characters came out of nowhere and really surprised me, but when that same trick was reused multiple times it just drew me out of the story.
Some of the writing was also just bad. I realise that it was adapted to the characters that were being written, but when I got to a point where someone was saying 'it's like playing a guitar solo with a gun', I literally burst out laughing. There's also another part where Kamran refers to the aliens as 'snatchers', which he has no reason to because that terminology isn't his. It's an editing miss, but, again, something that stood out.
It's a shame, because The Cold Forge was pretty good (though I don't put it on a pedestal, like some). I was really looking forward to this, but it just didn't work for me. I guess it wasn't helped by the monotonous narrator, and the present tense writing (neither of which I liked, but was able to get over), but by the time I got about 2/3 through I realised I just wasn't enjoying the book on the whole. I kept going because I was intrigued by the continuing story of
Spoiler
Blue
, but it wasn't enough for me. It's like a movie where I buy into the hype, but come away feeling like l've missed something that everyone else seems to get.