The fall of the house of Khudovec
As you remember from the previous part, our hero has nowhere to live or work. Baryszewo went with smoke, along with all the excavated material, or so it looks like so far. In addition, Olga is strange, weirder than before. Slowly, no one likes Saszka anymore, and poverty once again verifies interpersonal relations. We are dealing with a huge crunch. Is Gołkowski going to get our favorite defector from Legia out of trouble?
At the beginning, I will comfort you not to bite your nails – Olga will appear. He will remain one of the most important characters, although at some point he will disappear from the horizon in dramatic circumstances. Mykola will also return in the third volume, silent, polite and efficient as always. Even great tanks and Danilov will have their episodes. Their presence does not mean, of course, that Sasha will be easy or pleasant. On the contrary, he will have to work his way through the beer he brewed with his stacked combinations.
Is it the end?
This volume is to conclude with Sybirpunk, officially planned as a trilogy. The ending is so open that we can probably count on stories, but not another book. And yet… I don’t believe it already. Why? Gołkowski writes really epic finals. The ones that make the viewers look at the story so far, and sometimes even draw the moral from the whole story. This time we have the expected dose of action straight from the Fast and the Furious , some Metro 2033, clever licks and sharp retorts. But nothing else. No catharsis and no sense of closure.
About Sasha or Olga we learn nothing new that we would not have suspected so far. Mykola’s thread also only confirms the reader’s hypothesis (mine at least, I suspect that you can argue with me a bit in this aspect). I think that the author carefully prepared the ground for the finale, the whole thing is undoubtedly coherent and sensible. It uses the obligatory elements of squatting Slavs like stripes on a tracksuit. Meanwhile, I was hoping to play with the convention. Something similar to the Bailiff , because in this series the ending really knocks you off your feet and makes you rethink your readership.
Plans, shootings and kebabs
Yes, all these basic elements, to which we have become attached in Siberpunk , are present in the last volume of the trilogy. Ultimately, it turned out to be decent entertainment literature, relatively safe, if we think about compliance with the recipient’s expectations. Don’t confuse this with “writing to the public,” I mean, it doesn’t pose any more challenges than engaging in another hot sauce action scene.
When writing a review of the first volume, I mentioned ecological topics. Unfortunately, Gołkowski does not develop them. There is also no greater reflection on the statehood or a kind of anarchy in NeoSybirsk, whose inhabitants organize the infrastructure necessary for life by themselves. In the “three” we will see a little more clearly the differentiation of the city consisting of hostile districts or independent towns. It is a color rather than a voice about society. Finally, the corporate thread: after all, it is clear from the outset who really turns the Russia of the future. Do you hope for deeper reflections? Not this time.
If this is indeed the last book with Sasha in the foreground, I will squeeze the Sybirpunk trilogy onto the shelf “cute, fun, energetic, but purely entertaining.” And so I would like more reflections on the future (i.e. the present day of NeoSybirsk)! The beginning of the series really won my heart, it encouraged me to think about the world creation itself.
This time, Gołkowski focused on speed and action, efficient writing and not overly psychologizing. Maybe we will have an epic volume 3.5? The kind with fireworks of wit and revealing stunning conclusions? I wish