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The Coming Storm (SF) - Greg Mosse ***

It's a difficult task to write a sequel to a successful thriller and make it work as a standalone novel - sadly, this wasn't achieved well with The Coming Storm. It follows Greg Mosse's generally well received The Coming Darkness, a near future SF thriller set in a dystopian 2037 where both climate change and rampant infections have made the world a far less pleasant place and a worldwide conspiracy sets out to wreck modern civilisation.

Unfortunately, this book is way too slow to get started. Most of the first half of the book is just the three principle characters recovering from their exertions in the previous book. Admittedly there are a couple of assassination attempts, but mostly this is decidedly tedious. To make matters worse, the writing style can be a touch amateurish. In just a few pages, a characters hire car is described as a 'powerful EV saloon three times'. And some of the attempts at inner monologue are cringeworthy. For example we get the mind-numbing 'Of course, officially it was tomorrow because it was after midnight, but it was also still yesterday because she hadn't yet been to bed.'

To make matters worse, there are far too many characters introduced to keep on top of them all. As for the SF element, there are some interesting ideas, though it's hard to believe than in just 13 years climate change and new infectious diseases will have had such a severe effect on everyones' lives. There is also one big flaw in the tech - the only mobile devices seem to be next generation smartwatches, which given the limitations of both battery life and screen size seems highly unlikely. Mosse tries to get round this by giving them Star Wars-style projected holograms. But it isn't a great way to read a document... and kind of misses the reality that Star Wars is fantasy - you can't project a hologram onto empty space.

It's not all bad and I did persevere to the end. In the last few chapters we get an impressively engaging build up to a big finish. Suddenly it is tense - there is a lot at stake. And I like the way the book centres on the French secret service, rather than UK or US versions, giving it an exotic feel. Unfortunately, though,  after that build-up the book doesn't have ending. I'd go as far as saying it doesn't work as a novel at all - it's like a TV filler episode between episode 1 and episode 3.

If you've not read the first book (like me), this isn't great standalone - if you have and wanted an action-packed sequel it's a big let down. The series could recover with a powerful third entry, but this addition is disappointing.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
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