This was a painful read. I had hope after the first 2 book but was worried that there was no way to conclude the trilogy without a Deus Ex Machina move and I was right. VanderMeer does not do a Deus Ex Machina move to conclude the book to his credit but he failed to conclude the book. There are more open thread at the beginning of the book that at the end. I was very disappointed because we spent so much time on the obvious (Saul becoming the crawler) and had so many unanswered question (Who is Henry? What is Severance doing with S&SB? What happened to Control? Why do the biologist look the way she does? etc.) that it left a bad taste in my mouth as I finished the book. I guess we must accept that VenderMeek has no idea how to finish and complete the trilogy so he does. He does not even define what is Area X. As I said earlier, a painful read.

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