The Machinery is broken, and the old order cannot hold. Its downfall has let back into the world many creatures once forbidden, and they have begun to build strongholds and armies for the struggle to come. Charls Brandione, a former general, Aranfal, a secret policeman, and Canning, a merchant-turned-mandarin-turned-something-else-entirely, must learn what they can about this brave new world. Most of all, they must learn how to stay alive in it.

Perhaps I can best give the feel of The Strategist by quoting a line of dialogue that comes up a lot: “What is this place?”

Throughout the book, various members of the large cast of characters find themselves somewhere mysterious, often accompanied by a cryptic and powerful guide, and ask this question. In response they are treated to paragraphs of densely hedged exposition about what has come before, seasoned with a few dark hints about what will follow. If this sounds like your cup of tea, and particularly if you’ve read the previous volume, then great! But if your tastes run a little more towards the immediate and the explicable, you might want to look elsewhere.

I’ll say this for the The Machinery trilogy: There is definitely something there. When the narrative shakes off the urge for all storytelling to happen in the form of potted histories delivered by mysterious figures, the world revealed can be intriguing. By far the most compelling strand in this volume is the story of Drayn, a young woman from an aristocratic family with a wardrobe straining at the seams from all the skeletons inside.

But overall, the ratio of mythological background to real-world events feels dangerously top-heavy, as if the entire Greek pantheon were responsible only for the life of a single alienated accountant.

Myth often has its own dreamlike logic, and it’s that logic which seeps into every page of The Strategist, making it very hard to understand the characters’ motivations and hence sympathise with them. Things just sort of happen. People wander in and out of their enemies’ clutches, being lectured on the long-dead (or is it?) (it’s not) past.

From time to time, a new capitalised noun of great import is introduced – The Voice, The Boy, The Gamesman – which results in the reader feeling slightly beleaguered by the amount of backstory they must carry with them. Building up a clear map of how everything fits together is surprisingly difficult, which has unfortunate implications for how nicely the plot hums along.

Although it’s called The Strategist, it’s hard to understand why. There is a new Strategist at the beginning of the book, but in fact she has a comparatively small part of the action: There’s far too many other entities intriguing amongst themselves for her apparent reign of terror to make that much of an impact on the plot. There are at least a handful of viewpoint characters, whose stories only rarely intersect, making it hard to pick out the overall narrative.

On one level, it’s easy to see where the series goes from here: By the conclusion of the book, a struggle has been set up in a workmanlike fashion the resolution of which will clearly have implications for the future of the world. But outside of that, I wonder how well the series will cope with a transition from the treacle-slow exposition-by-dialogue of the first two volumes to a resolution which will hopefully involve at least one thing happening.

Book 1 left us on a cliff hanger ending and, as with all such books, it's difficult to précis the next without including spoilers. It would be simple to say that the immortals are going to play a game where some of our mortals from The Machinery are pawns and this book sets the game up - but that sounds dull and boring while the action is anything but.

It appears that no-one is who they seem and this comes as a shock to them while we also meet a whole raft of new characters in engaging action that has you not wanting to put the book down. Once again the author leaves us on not one cliff hanger, but several as each character moves closer to the game. It's very much a story of 'pick your hero', particularly amongst the mortals.

I really loved this book and had forgotten how much I enjoyed the first one. Bring on book 3 (The Memory) please and let's see if the game starts and who actually gets to play.

This is classified as science fiction/fantasy but still carries a strong steampunk feel.

I read The Machinery 2 years ago and the paperback of The Strategist is only out in January 2018 (although the Kindle version has been available quite a while) but I found that picking the cliffhanger up after so long a little difficult - as well as remembering each of the characters etc. But the good news is that The Memory comes out in Kindle form in June 2018 so picking this up (or starting the trilogy again) now would be a good time to do it.

An excellent read for SF/Fantasy/Steampunk fans of all ages.

There is great potential in this story, but I find myself unable to relate to it and its characters.

How can one play “the game” if there are no rules? With a dream-like or shrouded quality, each interaction becomes like a game or exercise in confusion. There are no straight actions, no straight dialogue, no character remains the same. Picture a whirlpool where all of creation has been added and chaos rules. Places are not as they seem and actions do create the reaction expected and the world seems lost in an eternal nightmare.
The prophecy has been fulfilled, the machinery has broken and Ruin is coming in the form of an eternal being with no concern for humanity. They call her Mother and her plan is to play a game where humanity has no value and her absolute power and control is her ultimate goal. There are those who will try to stop her, but will their efforts be in vain? What is the Choosing? What are “the Hands?”

In a world where the Machinery made a world of greatness, will its breakdown bring the end of all things? How will those who lived by the guidance and faith in the Machinery find the ability to rally for their lives? Is it all a game of memories resurrected? Has life only been a game all along? Will the winner need to find the first memory to win? Is it possible? What if memories are never what we remember?

Gerrard Cowan’s THE STRATEGIST continues the apocalyptic events of THE MACHINERY, with more chaos and less cohesiveness. Told in a chaotic and clipped fashion, this tale jumps from character to character, event to event and is NOT a tale to relax into. I was desperate to be able to jump into this tale, as opposed to chasing after it, but like the internal chaos of this tale, entry seemed impossible.

I received this copy from Harper Voyager in exchange for my honest review.

Trilogy: The Machinery - Book 2
Publisher: HarperVoyager (August 25, 2017)
Publication Date: August 25, 2017
Genre: Sci-fi | Fantasy
Print Length: 247 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com