THE AFTERLANDS

War between the humans and the Residents has become even more complicated.

After being out of the fight for a century, Nami Miyamoto has returned to find the landscape of the afterlife changed. The powerful, AI-powered Residents have congregated in the Capital, and the humans, with their own factions and tense alliances, have turned the tide of the war, in part thanks to an army led by Nami’s own sister, Mei. Nami, on the other hand, wants to convince Mei that peace is the answer, but to do this, she needs to find Caelan, who has disappeared. This trilogy closer picks up the momentum, deepening the worldbuilding while still allowing room for the development of returning characters and the resolution of unfinished arcs. While the afterlife is expansive, the dilemmas Nami faces with respect to both technology and human interactions are just as applicable in real life. Bowman leaves some of the conclusions involving secondary antagonists underexplored in favor of a more in-depth treatment of Ophelia, the AI who started it all, and her past (and future) with humans. This is a satisfying conclusion that carries the tensions and themes of the previous volumes through to the end. The first entry established Nami as Japanese and white.

A sharp mix of action-packed and cerebral, all wrapped up in one powerful and imaginative conclusion.