"Good sci fi spoiled by an author who can’t get out of his on way.

A good story with great characters thetas unfortunately comes along with a heavy helping of the authors own pudding brained narrative Haywood is a good author and I enjoyed his Extracted series but The Code series is just chock full of Hayward loathing over men in general and old, white men specifically. I’m all for self therapy but do it on your own time Hayward and don’t force your audience to suffer while you work out your own self loathing. "

"I would not read 3rd book if it wasn't already in my library. That how angry I was at 2nd book's ending.
I felt completely disillusioned regarding author's emotional intelligence and general abilities. I was ready to DNF it on a spot. Not the greatest place to start a new book.

In the end, it positively surprised me, but only because my expectations were literally on the ground under feet of mud. There was one thing that I really liked but I will get to it last.

First stuff that bothered me.

Narration
I couldn't exactly pin it when reading previous books, but now I finally see. The narration style is atrocious. We have a present tense from an all-knowing narrator. It positively kills any sense of urgency and unknown. Bye bye tension.
When characters do something we repeatedly hear about all of their motivations and some meandering divagations. I swear, I was rolling my eyes at every "wild Yassy, crazy Yassy".
There was left zero space for readers to conclude something on their own. It felt like all the 'right' conclusions were being constantly shoved down my throat.
The author very much wanted to tell us what this story suppose to be but failed to show it.

Characters
There were too many. I didn't care about half of them. The ones I did care about, maybe except Yassy, had no arc. We constantly hear about them being this and that, but I honestly don't know where it all is coming from. The author has some super protective feelings about Sam, that is a grown man, but somehow everyone treats him like a toddler.

Plot and ending
The moment conspiracy theory entered the stage I could not treat this plot seriously. It completely disconnected me emotionally. The ending was just chaos. I understood nothing. Whatever happened it was obvious from the begging that Sam will hack some magical solution and all heroic elfors will rise and charge everywhere. And this note that they didn't harm anyone innocent during their charge. Give me a break.

Problematic stuff
I hate the way this author writes about SA and trauma. It's just so shallow and performative.

Stuff I liked
Somehow, by complete coincidence I fathom, we got a very beautiful sapphic romance in there. It was brief and of course, led absolutely nowhere, but it was a truly joyful moment during this read. It's huge shame that the author has to be a man."

"I thought this was a trilogy. If it was, the end sucks. If it's not, WTF?!

It was the best of the three, but that ending is entirely unsatisfying and presses every one of my "manipulative, untrust-worthy author" buttons.

I really dislike being toyed with. It puts me off the author and wanting to pay for their work."