LitPick Review
Infinity 7: War of Gods (Book 2) is the jam-packed conclusion to the long Dark Spores series. This novel focuses on all of the characters we have come to know and love from the past books and throws some new characters our way to spice up the story. The Capes, the Majesties, the Solar Warriors, and some new heroes must team up once again if they want to have any chance of saving this universe against the new threat – Stratus. This newly introduced Space Pirate, Stratus is the most dangerous threat that our heroes have ever faced; he is smart, cunning, cruel, and willing to stop at nothing to accomplish his goals. Stratus is one of very few to have found the immortal being in charge of the universe's balance throughout all of time and space, and worse, was able to outsmart him; Stratus poses a dire threat towards that immortal, and worse, to all of the realms. What's worse? Our heroes can find no peace on Earth either, as Patrick Waiters and his hate-mongering Cast-Aways continue increasing their efforts to rid Earth of these super-powered non-humans. Will our beloved heroes be able to stop Stratus before all of time and space is irrevocably destroyed and remade, or will Stratus win? You'll have to read it to find out!
Opinion:
As I have only read three (well now four with this one) books in the Dark Spores series, I have to admit that this book was hard to follow in the beginning. It made so many references to other books which I just haven't been able to read, so there were times when I was going, 'Huh? What's going on right now? Who is that?' With that said, I will wholly admit that these problems I faced in the beginning 1/3 of the book were a problem based around my lack of knowledge of the overarching story/plot lines and definitely not a fault of the authors themselves.
This is the 12th book in the main line of the Dark Spores franchise (there's more books and comics than that, but I digress), and having read only three of them prior to this book, my experience about being lost is not one that you should expect to happen to you if you've read the other books first. After getting acquainted with these new (to me) characters and plots, I stopped being confused and was able to latch on to the story that I know and love from reading past books in the series.
With that out of the way, let's get away from what is more of a 'me problem,' and focus on the book itself. Braxton A. Cosby never seems to disappoint! This is just more of that wonderful worldbuilding and is filled with those intense scenes and dramatic conclusions that I have come to associate with this series. There never seems to be a dull moment with this crew of super-normals (and Sebastian), and it never fell into the rut of predictability (in a good way!) that seems to ever-so-often be the case for superhero stories. I loved reading Sebastian's progress from this weak human to this figurehead of humanity, proving that we can still make a change in this world even if we don't have all of the benefits that some of our peers have been granted. It felt very Marvel's Avengers Endgame-esque in the fact that all of these storylines came back together and were able to mesh well. After all the confusion, I honestly really enjoyed reading the book and couldn't think of a better way to end the series.
