The Rebellion’s Last Traitor, by Nik Korpon

In a dystopian world ravaged by war and environmental collapse, one man fights history to discover the truth about his wife and child. After decades of war, the brutal Tathadann Party restored order toshattered Eitan City by outlawing the past and rewriting history. Memory is a commodity – bought and sold, and experienced like a drug. Henraek works as a Tathadann memory thief, draining citizens’ memories. Everything changes when Henraek harvests a memory of his own wife’s death, in the hidden rebellion that once tore apart their city. Now he will do whatever it takes to learn the truth – even ifit means burning Eitan City to the ground.

I saw Nik Korpon’s The Rebellion’s Last Traitor on Netgalley, and since I groove scifi, and Angry Robot in general, I decided to give it a whirl.

The Good: Intricate world building. The backstory of the word envisioned by the author displayed a lot of thought and a love of the fictional world created. The gritty dark noir feel of the city and its inhabitants really drove home the totalitarian oppression committed against the citizens.

The Bad: The rebellion that ended so long ago that put so many characters on the varying sides was to more interesting that the main storyline. But these little snippets were almost an afterthought. In fiction like Firefly, the loss of the rebels was so important that it was integrated into each episode. Also, the alternating narrative is nice, but the style of both characters and their POVs were pretty much the same. More than once I had to flip back to the first page of the chapter to verify what POV I was in.

The Disappointing: The story was super confusing. There was a complex socio-political thing going on, but there just wasn’t enough information to really click. I had no investment in the characters. The Rebellion’s Last Traitor has so much potential, but the execution was left muddy and confusing.

The Final Word: I’m probably the wrong person to ask if I’d recommend this story. I like all sci-fi, even bad sci-fi. Reading this book felt like I had accidentally picked up the second book in a series, and I spent most of the read lost. I’m going to give this on three stars.

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