Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions (The Bern Saga Book 3)

The Bern Saga was the first series published by Hugh Howey. His writing just continues to grow as his publications continue to grow in number. The Bern Saga has great characters from various alien places.... A great author not to be missed. His new Wool series is one that I just couldn't put down. I can't wait for him to start another world for me to enter...

Howdy writes so vividly that he puts you right there in space with Molly Fyde and her crew. He leaves such suspense that you can't wait to see what happens next. If they ever made a movie from this, it could be this generation's STAR WARS. Must read!

Hugh Howey is an amazing storyteller! Not only is the plot gripping, but the characters are creative and interesting. Once again Howey infuses a really fun story with some deep meaning and from the fantastical we take away something real. I can't wait to start the next one!

I'm reading this Bern Saga series in sequence. I was intrigued and very satisfied with the preceding books "...Parsona Rescue" and "...Land of Light". They were difficult to put down. "Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions" is not in the same league. I had to work at reading it. As another reviewer mentioned, it is gory and off-putting. But even more of a problem is that it rambles and doesn't seem to hold together. It may be, I hope, a transitional book leading the reader from "...Land of Light" to "Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace", the finale of the series. I've not read the finale, so I am only guessing here. I will probably read the finale eventually, but the third book has left me somewhat disinterested, and it will probably take some time before I succumb to curiosity and tackle "Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace".

I am becoming very tired of these never ending sagas. I find I am downloading way too much of what is, to me, very forgettable SF. Am also beginning to wonder about the glowing reviews I read on the same SF.

I read lots of interesting stories over the holidays. The first order of business was to finish up the Molly Fyde series, which I did. The Blood of Billions is the third book in Hugh Howey's Bern Saga. I have enjoyed reading this series and am glad that I decided to read some of Hugh Howey's earlier work. Mr. Howey is one of my favorite newer authors and I have a lot of fun reading his books. In fact, I took a trip through some other of his stories that I'll review here later in the month. Molly Fyde is once again in peril. This book leaves things unresolved so I'm glad I had the fourth book ready to go before reading it. Our characters are once again in peril and there is a lot going on. I have to say that this was not my favorite book of the series. I didn't like that so many things were unresolved going into the fourth book, but since I've already read the fourth book I can say that things were wrapped up pretty well in the end. Walter is a problem character in each of the books and this one is no exception. Unfortunately, having Walter on your team is kind of like have a 5-year-old computer prodigy with no social skills or moral compass. He's computer smart, but socially he doesn't function very well. The book is split between the 'real' world and the 'hyperspace' world in this book. I very much enjoyed getting to know some new characters, but it seemed the pacing was a little off in this volume. None of this book's issues kept me from reading the next one and overall I thought the series was really good and I enjoyed it. Sorry for the short review, but by Book 3 it is hard to come up with new things to say about the continuing story. I'll post the review for Book 4 in the next few days and then there are many more to follow.

Please note that this review was originally posted on my blog and is worded as such.

Everything gets slowed down again in this book. Sort of like the first one in the series. It is like the author got near the end, and decided he wanted to stretch what should have been a 3 book series into another book. Some crazy ideas about hyperspace, and space travel in general made this one a hard read for me.

While I've thus far enjoyed the Fyde series, this third installment is not quite the measure of the previous two. Rather than rehash the same points of discontent other reviewers have accurately pointed out, such as the level of gratuitous violence and gore, I'd like to focus on the editing and formatting issues that plague this particular book.

First, and easily the most offensive, is the formatting of this volume, which is the Kindle version. There's simply no justifiable reason why a digital book should have hard coded word breaks. Allow me to clarify:

When reading a printed work, it's not uncommon to have words hyphenated when reaching the edge of the page. It's tolerable, because it's at the edge of a page. What isn't quite so pleasing, is when the word is erroneously hyphenated regardless of page edge proximity, font size / style, or any other user setting. Instead, the reader is constantly treated to words that are incorrectly hyphenated, in the mid-dle of a line, and again, with no way around it. And yes, I'm doing it deliberately to il-lustrate the point.
Now, imagine reading an entire book this way. It's absurd. You can't change it, and the distraction certainly doesn't assist in keeping the reader engrossed in a moderately engaging story. Did I mention that this is occurring within a DIGITAL book?

Now, I can handle a few misspelled words here and there, but there's a limit, and I hit it a third of the way through. Don't even get me started about the incorrect character references. Forget editing, simply having a friend read through it and write down the most obvious mistakes would have gone a long way to make reading this book more forgiving.

Spoiler alert, kinda.
First off, the Wool series written by Howley was excellent, I highly recommend it, I have no doubt he will become a very successful author and I look forward to reading everything he writes. That being said: I read about 99% of the third installment in the Molly Fyde series and just said 'forget it', Just isn't worth investing anymore of my time.
The first two books in the series were ok, the characters were interesting enough, so I gave it a try to see how it all ends. What happened???
The story takes this hard right turn and I completely loose interest.
OK, What is the main motivation of the characters again? Why do the Bern want to destroy all life? Only about five people in in the universe know what fusion fuel is??? Really? Throw in hyperspace, and the story is just too goofy. I am not trying to pick apart the book. All the characters are interesting[ if taken one at a time] but the way Howley has them interact is just ridiculous. I was five pages shy from finishing the third book and just couldn't do it.

Where to begin - was this even written by HH ? Took a really great story and I guess he decided that into their lives some blood must fall.... did it ever- where were the vampires to enjoy it? Crazy bad. Glad I did not buy the book but got from library. Just out my time and interest in this storyline. Really glad I read other wool series by HH and so acknowledge he can make a story sing- this was just awful!

Yea, I should probably issue a minor SPOLIER ALERT here.

Wow, first to review! I loved Blood of Billions, because it hurried along the story and fleshed out central ideas to the overall plot of the series (as far as I can see, anyway!) and I think we're being set up for a big ride here. We're introduced to new lovable characters (particularly Cat, a novel and mysterious character for sure! and the Seer, quirky as she is wise) and re-introduced to some we already knew briefly (Mortimor, Saunders). Blood of Billions gives us huge downloads of information delivered through a clever and quite brutal story. Regardless of the real idea behind the title, we get plenty of blood throughout this book, even spilled by our own beloved group of heroes. For me, Cole really shined in this book and Molly took a slight backseat - but I think that may have been the author's point. I would have loved more Anlyn and Edison, but that's only because Anlyn is my favorite of our 'original five' group.

I'm no expert, but the author's writing is definitely evolving into it's own with this installment. I felt more intimate with the characters and their surroundings, loving the western-feel of Lok and trying to get a grip of what-in-hyperspace was happening in hyperspace right along with Cole. This book is a mixture of political, western, science fiction, and current events all rolled into one 350-page adventure. Read it now!

Spoiler alert, kinda.
First off, the Wool series written by Howley was excellent, I highly recommend it, I have no doubt he will become a very successful author and I look forward to reading everything he writes. That being said: I read about 99% of the third installment in the Molly Fyde series and just said 'forget it', Just isn't worth investing anymore of my time.
The first two books in the series were ok, the characters were interesting enough, so I gave it a try to see how it all ends. What happened???
The story takes this hard right turn and I completely loose interest.
OK, What is the main motivation of the characters again? Why do the Bern want to destroy all life? Only about five people in in the universe know what fusion fuel is??? Really? Throw in hyperspace, and the story is just too goofy. I am not trying to pick apart the book. All the characters are interesting[ if taken one at a time] but the way Howley has them interact is just ridiculous. I was five pages shy from finishing the third book and just couldn't do it.

Where to begin - was this even written by HH ? Took a really great story and I guess he decided that into their lives some blood must fall.... did it ever- where were the vampires to enjoy it? Crazy bad. Glad I did not buy the book but got from library. Just out my time and interest in this storyline. Really glad I read other wool series by HH and so acknowledge he can make a story sing- this was just awful!

Yea, I should probably issue a minor SPOLIER ALERT here.

Wow, first to review! I loved Blood of Billions, because it hurried along the story and fleshed out central ideas to the overall plot of the series (as far as I can see, anyway!) and I think we're being set up for a big ride here. We're introduced to new lovable characters (particularly Cat, a novel and mysterious character for sure! and the Seer, quirky as she is wise) and re-introduced to some we already knew briefly (Mortimor, Saunders). Blood of Billions gives us huge downloads of information delivered through a clever and quite brutal story. Regardless of the real idea behind the title, we get plenty of blood throughout this book, even spilled by our own beloved group of heroes. For me, Cole really shined in this book and Molly took a slight backseat - but I think that may have been the author's point. I would have loved more Anlyn and Edison, but that's only because Anlyn is my favorite of our 'original five' group.

I'm no expert, but the author's writing is definitely evolving into it's own with this installment. I felt more intimate with the characters and their surroundings, loving the western-feel of Lok and trying to get a grip of what-in-hyperspace was happening in hyperspace right along with Cole. This book is a mixture of political, western, science fiction, and current events all rolled into one 350-page adventure. Read it now!

A great series written like the old serials that used to run at the theaters on Saturdays. Each book leaves you with a cliffhanger so you anxiously await the next in the series. A good story even for people like me that are not big into syfy adventures. Well written very enjoyable read.

Having started this multi-volume saga, I am interested in reading it to completion. The plot is a bit far-fetched, and it was even more so in this one compared to previous volumes. Molly is a compelling heroine, and I am anxious to see how it finally ends.

The Molly Fyde series was amazing. A lot of backstory was told in the later books, that Mr. Howey wove into the current story making it relevant and bringing more character depth, The only editorial comment I would make is there were some misspellings, missing words and grammatical errors - not significant amounts, but enough to notice and very uncharacteristic of Mr. Howey's work. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire series

Hugh usually has some excellent lines spaced thorought careful plotting. It's like walking through someone's house and finding it a pleasant house but theirs little bowls of delicious candy every few rooms. It's nice in two ways.

Many twist and turns. The last chapter is so baffling, I must read the fourth book. I can't figure out how this will be resolved. Extremely fond of this author because she uses very strong characters.

This book tells us more about hyperspace, and how it is connected to realspace. We learm more of the insides of major characters. A few, minor errors or sloppy bits, but overall, a decent bridge between other books.

Poor Molly, has to save the universe. Although based on a woman just reaching maturity, the book and it's heroine keep you riveted. The extreme situations she and her crew face, the amazing integrity Molly displays, the boneheaded stubborness we occasionally glimse, it is all just a delightful, but not juvenile, ride that's ends far too quickly. By the way, saving the universe is what she must do next!