Dan Wells' "Ruins,"...A Book Review

*

Today I finished Dan Wells' Ruins. Finishing this book also finishes Wells' Partials Sequence, a collection of three books.

This trilogy takes place almost sixty-or-so years in the future. The earth's survived (barely...) two devastating wars, one where humans created living organisms to fight for them, and the other, a war between these manufactured soldiers and the remaining human race.

Great set up for a series!

Because the soldiers, or partials, are sentient beings, they cannot be programmed to like robots, thus avoiding the Asimov Laws where the creations of man will not allow man to come to harm.

Forget about that! These partials are serious killers!

Each book raises the seriousness level, as you would expect. In the third book the well-developed characters face total annihilation, complete with "hand of God" weapons. Wells provides the characters (and by extension, the reader...) to contemplate philosophical dilemmas without being too preachy or heavy-handed. 

Caution! There is a love triangle, which helped to motivate the three characters throughout the series. I'm not necessarily opposed to love triangles in stories, but I spoke with a fan of dystopian literature and she said she hates them. I guess to each his--or her--own.

What I enjoyed the most of the series was Well's creation of what is called "The Link" between all partials. George Lucas created "The Force." Frank Herbert created a way for characters to use spoken words as a weapon. And Dan Wells created "The Link." Basically, it's a way for partials to communicate between each other, but it also contains a historical record, plus it's kind of like a Vulcan Mind Melt, but without doing that Vulcan palm-thing on another person's face. Really like the possibilities "The Link" gives to the story. Entire series could be written just on that theme alone.

I liked all the books. There were some slow times, as with most epics, but Wells took me to a believable world with believable characters. Well done, Dan!

* Photo used without permission from: https://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/17607716-ruins