Book Review
Title: The Block (The Loop Trilogy Book 2) by Ben Oliver
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
After the ending of The Loop, I couldn’t wait to get into The Block but I had no idea where the story was going to go from here since Luka has been imprisoned at the Block with presumably Kina and Malachai while the others have escaped with the Missing. It turns out that I was right about the ending of The Loop being a simulation but Luka is aware of it and spends the next 20 days there living out a life with Kina after the war until Happy begins asking questions again and it’s all over. Back in the reality of the Block we can see Luka hasn’t given up and even manages a brief escape attempt where he gets to kiss Kina in real life for the first time before Happy catches them and returns them to their cells. However, Happy is all too eager to inform Luka that it has found a way to override its programming meaning it can now harm humans directly which is one of the few things that prevented them from being killed in the first novel. Despite sending six hours in the Sane Zone where Happy usually tries to get Luka to give up the locations of the others, he feels like he is slowly losing his mind especially since he now knows that Wren, Kina, Malachai and Woods are all in the Block and it seems like they are the only ones there as a guard informs Luka that everyone else died which means they are the most important things to Happy right now and it is never going to give them up.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we see that Luka has spent almost 50 days in the Block while Happy has tried every method from coercion to torture to get the information it wants out of Luka and he has reached breaking point where he is willing to let go of his sanity and commit suicide in the harvest tube. At the very moment Luka is attempting to do this Pander and Kina shatter the tube and rescue him, although Luka is convinced that it is just another of Happy’s simulations and it takes a little while for Kina to convince him that this is real and that they are really escaping this time. By the time they bring Luka back to reality he wants to go for Wren and the other but Pander informs him that Malachai and Woods were moved out of the Block a few days before and they don’t know where they are and they don’t want to go for Wren and she doesn’t have the same healing technology as them and will most likely be pretty insane by now. Luka refuses to leave her behind so they obviously get her and escape once more via a flying car before heading to their next location, however, along the way they realise that Wren’s camera isn’t covered and Happy sends a train at them in order to stop them but they manage to barely avoid it. After this they make sure to keep Wren’s camera covered so Happy can’t track them and Luka learns that the healing technology is working on long term conditions like Pander’s hearing and Pod’s blindness. As the head to the safe haven the first reach a bathroom where Wren, Kina and Luka are all knocked out as someone called Doctor Ortega operates on them to remove their implanted cuffs and cameras meaning Happy has no way of controlling them or spying on them. Their haven turns out to be a library in the Old Town and they have set up a scrambler within three miles making Happy’s technology obsolete if it even gets close and they also have a panic room below the library if Happy managed to track them do. Mainly thanks to Pod and Igby they have been working on decoding the information that Happy sends the strange Alts in order to figure out what it’s plans are but it is slow work as they are working with outdated technology.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, I was surprised by how quickly the novel moved from being in the Block to being free so I have no idea what is going to come in the rest of the novel as I was fully expecting it to take at least 30% of the novel before they were freed from the Block. Once at the haven, Luka is getting settled in and gets a chance to learn of what Pod and Igby have planned if they can get the necessary equipment they need they will be able to track down both Woods and Malachai and possibly rescue them too. However, they have to send scouts out into the city for both equipment and provisions since the library doesn’t have anything like that on hand. When the current scouts consisting of pregnant Samira return with nothing because the city is flooded with Alts and drones, Luka offers to go next. He is teamed up with Samira and Akimi and they decide that Akimi will go for provisions while Sam and Luka will hunt down the processor that Igby needs. They manage to find a processor but Sam is attacked by a Smiler that Luka manages to knock out before it does any damage but it hits home for Sam how close she was to dying. That isn’t the worst part though as her gun going off alert Happy to their location and they have drones and soldiers on them in minutes. While they manage to take out three of the four soldiers, Luka only has one bullet left and Sam’s gun has overheated but Luka manages to make the shot and they get away using the tunnels to hide in an abandoned pub until it is dark and they can return to the library. Being so close to the financial district is hard for Luka as he knows Pod and Igby got Molly to the bunker but when the battle happened at the end of the previous book, they didn’t have time to go back for her and they don’t know whether she is still alive or if she has been captured or killed.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, it seems like Happy is always one step ahead of the group but I doubt it is going to stay that way for long. However, there are budding suspicions over who Doctor Ortega is and if she can be trusted as she seems to be a next level Alt that Happy can’t control and Luka has the nagging feeling he has met her before but can’t place her. After hiding out for hours, Sam and Luka make it back to the library but not without having to impersonate an ALT officer to make it back without being caught which surprises everyone in the group and they begin looking to Luka as their leader in the absence of Malachai and this disturbs him as he feels he doesn’t have the right qualities for being a leader. With the new processor Pod and Igby are able to find out that Woods and Malachai are alive but they have been taken to the Arc where Happy is going to upload into them in less than two hours before the computer crashes. Luka volunteers to get Malachai and Woods out of the Arc but without the computer he will be caught immediately but he still has the Alt uniform. He decides to take Apple-Moth, a companion drone who can block the other drones from finding Luka and it has a face changer app where it can make Luka look more like an Alt to avoid detection. By the time Luka reaches the Arc building for the mandatory meeting about Phase Three, he only has 20 minutes in order to save Woods and Malachai and begins looking for the lab. He eventually finds it but he now has under 5 minutes to save Woods and under 15 to save Malachai and he also happens to be surrounded by Alt soldiers so it isn’t looking good for Luka. However, I am wondering about the E4-EX-19 that Doctor Ortega told Luka to destroy if he found it in the Arc meaning it has got to be important to Happy.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, I have a sinking feeling that Luka is either going to get himself captured again and if Happy catches him this time I am damn sure it will never let him go or he is going to get himself or his friends killed but they have pulled off the impossible before. As Luka enters the lab and sees not only Woods and Malachai but Tyco there waited for Happy to uploaded into their minds he knows he doesn’t have much time. He wakes Woods up but with only a minute until the upload is complete Woods chooses to kill himself rather than become a host for the AI. Luka has a full blown panic attack after that but Apple-Moth helps him through it as he wakes up Malachai as they have time to leave the Arc before the upload is complete. As they are planning to do just that Happy awakes in Tyco’s body and tries to stop them but they manages to escape and get down into the sewers. However, time is running out for Malachai and he asks Luka to either remove the eyes or kill him. Luka removes the eyes, destroying one and pocketing the other one hoping that Igby can hack into it. They don’t get far before soldiers are upon them and it seems there is no way out when Molly appears from the woods, kills the soldiers and helps Luka carry Malachai into a Red Zone. She explains that they are going to Purgatory, where the Missing are, and that the Red Zones are a lie as there is a radiation barrier at the beginning of the Red Zones but the radiation inside is receding so it is safe for up to a half mile into the Red Zone. Luka is obviously overwhelmed at seeing his sister alive but when they get to Purgatory he realises that the arcade is full of tubes, each one housing a dead body. Molly warns her brother as she gets Malachai into a tube to get out as quickly as he can because something isn’t right with Purgatory and Luka doesn’t understand what she is trying to tell him but he goes in regardless. Purgatory turns out to be a haven inside an old video game where the Missing have been hiding to avoid detection by Happy. There they get to meet Doctor Price who explains Happy’s plan and both Luka and Malachai realises they aren’t going to help them fight Happy as they are content to live in this virtual world for the rest of time or until Happy destroys them.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, something is obviously wrong with Luka’s memory as he can’t recall key information even though he is sure he has been told things he needs to remember. This gets worse the longer they are in Purgatory and they ask Price to tell them how they can leave this place and he does. Malachai wants to leave straight away but Luka won’t go without his sister and heads up to get her. However, when he gets there he finds her emotionless even though he just informed her that their father is dead and knows something is wrong but more of his memory is leaking away and he can’t remember why he should want to leave. It is almost like the casino scene from Percy Jackson and by the time he reaches the entrance doors he finds Malachai there and has no memory of wanting to leave. This is going to be a real problem because unless they get out of Purgatory and back to the library then his friends are going to continue leaving and might be captured for Happy to use in Phase Three of its plan and I have a feeling that Apple-Moth might lend a hand here. After escaping from Purgatory, Malachai and Luka have to face Doctor Price as their friends arrive to help. However, Luka has figured out that Price has been drugging everyone in Purgatory because he doesn’t want to be alone when the end come. I did like the fact Molly was the one to kill Price before removing the drugs from the systems of everyone else in Purgatory. Molly decides to stay behind in Purgatory to explain what has been happening while Luka and the other return to the library and find a way to deal with Happy once and for all. However, when they get back it takes minutes for Happy to trap them in the library, during this assault Sam goes into labour and everyone retreats to the panic room hoping to buy some time for them to form a plan but it seems like this is the end for the group. Luka, however, can’t stand by and let his friends die when there is something he can do so he makes a deal with Happy where he will be taken as the third host and experiment for Happy to figure out the healing technology and the secrets behind it if Happy lets his friends leave and live out their lives. He even makes the amendment that once Phase Three begins his friends can have the healing tech reversed and live out the rest of their natural lives within the Arc and Happy agrees.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, it isn’t this simple as his friends don’t know Luka is going to leave them and after getting Sam, her baby and Wren out of the room with Doctor Ortega he informs the others that Tyco as per his own deal with Happy wants someone to die and if it can’t be Luka then someone else needs to take his place. As the door to the panic room needs to be held open from the inside and will slam shut the second it is released a decision is made and Igby is going to stay behind. However, at the last minute Pod punches him out and orders the others at gunpoint to leave him there, obviously Igby isn’t happy with this and gets to say goodbye through the intercom where almost everyone learns that this pair aren’t only friend they were lovers too and it broke my heart to read it. After that Luka abandons them while they head back to Purgatory and he witnesses the true evil that Happy is creating but he uses Apple-Moth to record everything. The following morning, he is supposed to give a speech informing the rebels that Happy’s plan in the right one etc but as always Luka goes completely off script informing his friends not to give up and to keep fighting no matter what happens. The ending of the Block was heart-breaking in many ways as we lose some of the characters we have come to love and I can’t wait for the rest of the group to complete destroy Happy in the final book (whenever it comes out). If you haven’t read this series yet then I highly recommend it and it is another 5 star read for me.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
I received this review copy from Edelweiss
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