Well, I've finished the third and final book in the trilogy, and I guess it was satisfying enough, especially the trilogy overall, if not as satisfying for book 3 as the first two novels.

Plenty of action, sizable dead body count, cool scientific stuff and technology, stuff to ponder over and think deeply about if you wish. Good descriptive fighting scenes, with elements of martial arts and military weapons etc.

It would make a great movie ... and game.

My reading list for 2021

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WARNING - Possibly spoiler(s) in the following, so perhaps best if you avoid if you are thinking of reading ... once seen (read), hard to forget, and it is a great story worthy of a read.

Part of the reason for feeling less satisfied, is because my reading kept getting interrupted (didn't even read any of it one day), and I suppose I didn't try as hard as I would have to avoid being interrupted, if things had gone the way I felt they should have ... but that is probably just me.

It is also true to say, that the longer I pondered the main concept, the more time I had to see its flaws, which is always a risk with many SciFi notions or ideas.

Personally I got to the point, where I felt the main concept would have been more credible if the Synthetics looked and seemed a little less human. That would have made it easier to believe that most humans did not consider them human at all ... or something less than human and therefor justify how they were used and treated. But I guess if you compare to Blade Runner, that wasn't really any different in that regard ... except the world for the most part has moved on since the 1980s, and humanity seems to be more open in the 2020s about race and gender etc etc.

Anyway, the above aside, I am really glad I read the trilogy and would conceivably read it again one day, if possible ... and I will read more of the author's novels.

Really enjoyed my first DAVID BALDACCI novel MEMORY MAN. It was a great mystery thriller with all sorts of twists, and my second read on the Kobo.

As a result I decided to buy the sixth (last so far) ebook in that series at Kobo ... few cents cheaper than Amazon at $9.99 AUD.
I also bought another of his ebooks, the first in another series ... same deal with price.

And due to a reported drop in price for the latest Val McDermind novel by a few dollars, matched at Kobo and a few cents cheaper there, I bought that too, for $12.99 AUD.

I also recently bought a couple of cheap ebooks from Kobo for another author I collect - Eric Van Lustbader ... 4th and 5th in a series.
And because of my wife, grabbed a free ebook by David Luddington at Kobo ... she'd seen some of his books at Amazon and expressed an interest in reading one especially. So I went looking at Kobo, but they only had one other one, but damn it was free, so I grabbed it, then bought the one she mostly wanted at Amazon ... wasn't expensive either. I am also keen to check his books out ... full of humor in a kind of Hitchiker's Guide kind of way, so they say ... quite surprised my wife actually found that appealing, but there you go.

So finally I am now buying more ebooks at Kobo instead of buying at Amazon ... which was one of the major points for buying a Kobo device.

My Reading List For 2021

I kept hearing horror stories about Amazon's DRM and how they can remove any title any time without warning or refund from your library. Not for me that.

pssst There are ways to make a backup copy and remove DRM from it. hides in shadows

Well Kobo are probably no different in that regard.
I've never had it happen to me, and I have thousands of ebooks on my device, but have read of it for others, but pretty rare.
Generally it is due to playing around with zones when that happens, especially in the past where they weren't as tough with VPN and credit card country of origin checking etc. If the ebooks on your device appear to be from another account, they can get wiped ... sort of an anti-theft measure as well ... and that only occurs when the device connects via Wifi.

There is a plugin for the calbre ebook catalog program, that can remove DRM from both Kobo and Kindle ebooks that have it. In the case of Kindle though, you need to be careful what version of Kindle For PC you are using, as the latest is usually newer encryption ... so it pays to stay a version or three behind. MobileRead Forums have all the detail.

Just know of the case from 2009. But, of course, the fact that they are DRMed is the first problem.
In my case recent versions don't work at all, and there seem to be plenty in this situation. Had stuck with 1.16 till it just updated on me, no clue how, if I used it for something and the update notification appeared I'd tell it to skip that version, but whether I misclicked once or what, no clue, but the next time I opened it it just updated and then wouldn't start anymore. Uninstalled, reinstalled, same, so I started searching and found topics mentioning the issue starting several updates back, and one posting a link to an archive.org copy of 1.17, so I got that and it worked.

Until several months ago, you could not use above v1.24 if you wanted to remove DRM. You can now I believe use up to v1.28, though I've only gone to v1.26 which has the new feature of sorting Collections.

A few months ago, Amazon did a sneaky silent upgrade to v1.30, which happened regardless of your Update setting. There is a way to prevent that happening again ... see MobileRead Forums for details ... renaming or creating a file or somesuch.

Doing that sneaky thing and continually screwing up my covers for ebooks not bought at Amazon, but legitimate purchases from elsewhere in my case, along with a bunch of other annoyances, have turned me toward Kobo. I still have to stick with Amazon for some ebooks, because they are often at least a dollar cheaper from there ... very popular ebooks though are roughly the same price at both places. Some less popular ebooks can even be several dollars cheaper at Amazon ... and many ebooks simply don't exist at Kobo ... haven't seen it the other way around ... yet.

P.S. One of the things that angered me about the sneaky upgrade, was it happened in the background, and I wasted over an hour trying to figure out why Kindle For PC would not run. My PC is slow and it takes a while for the popup message about updates and then the splash screen to appear. Neither of those were appearing after several minutes, and so I basically presumed something was wrong ... clearly it was updating and making changes in the background at the time, but I had no idea of that. Finally I gave up and went to MobileRead, and then discovered about the sneaky update. At the best of times, with over 4,000 ebooks in Kindle For PC, it takes in excess of 30 minutes to finish loading and appear on my under-powered PC. So I don't run it often, and usually go get something to eat and drink, toilet stop etc, maybe read etc, while waiting.

Didn't remove DRM. It is possible that I had some book from elsewhere loaded in it, couldn't say now, and it'd see that as having had DRM "removed", but no idea.
Ah, that would explain it.

I just have a bunch of Kindle freebies in it (most grabbed when they were temporarily free, I mean), and 3 I bought with the $10 free credit they gave me when I first synced it. Since afaik there are no Amazon gift cards / store credit in stores over here and they don't accept PSC, I couldn't actually buy anything from there even if I wanted to. And I don't.

I don't think I have ever heard of an ebook being removed from a device because it did not have DRM. Many ebooks quite legitimately don't have DRM, and even AMAZON used to sell a few in that state at author or publisher request, though these days every ebook bar a few is now provided in the KFX file format which by its nature is DRM .. many authors are not happy with that state of affair from what I have read. Kobo still provide ebooks as an EPUB file as either DRM-Free or Adobe DRM. I suppose they could guestimate if DRM has been removed, going by the title and author and ebook ID, though who knows what the state may have been at one point history wise, and it may be even less likely if you have a converted ebook on your device from another store.

Certainly an ereader device can support a few file formats. All I think support TXT and PDF files. Kindles also support AZW3, MOBI, KFX and a few others, with DRM or not, but not EPUB versions. The Kobo supports EPUB versions but not Kindle formats. Some devices also support audiobooks ... no doubt different formats per store.

There are various ways to add an ebook to your reader ... either sync via Wifi or 4G etc with the store or as drive plugged into your PC. That latter is called side-loading and the free calibre program is great for doing that. With Amazon you can also upload a DRM-Free ebook to them to be delivered to your device as a document. Kobo and Apple support email delivery, etc. Every device from what I have seen has a unique email address.

Don't know if you are aware of BookBub, but they can send you a daily email with a few discounted or free ebooks in the categories you specify, at various stores (Amazon, Kobo, Google, etc). I've gotten over 3,000 free ebooks that way, over a few years, in the Mystery - Cozy - Thriller - Scifi - Fantasy - Adventure categories. I've also paid for a bunch of them too ... or one of their freebies has led to me doing so. I've gotten some terrific reads that way and started collecting some great new authors.

Hell, over time or sometimes just as a boxset, I have gotten whole series for free via that BookBub email and a bit of browsing. I've gotten oodles in fact ... somewhat amazing when you think about it ... I may even feel a bit guilty about that when I start to read some of them.

A Princess of Mars by ERB and A Knight of the White Cross by G A Hently
Thoroughly enjoyed them both. Princess for the adventure and White Cross for the history and action.
Working on WInd in the Willows now.

Les damnés de l'artère Pascale Fonteneau

Another volume of the "Le Poulpe" series. But this time, the hero is not Gabriel Lecouvreur aka Le Poulpe, but his girlfriend Cheryl, hairdresser, who during a professional meeting in Brussels, will get involved in a dark story about sects, European union and people who want to protect their neighborhood.

I must admit it was a fun one, because for once le Pouple is nowhere to be seen in that volume! The story is interesting, the characters over the top but in a good meaning and the conclusion a real conclusion. Nice read!

Les Rois du Monde - Chasse Royale vol. II - Les grands arrières - Jean-Philippe Jaworsky

The story of Bellovese, the Celtic kind in a half-realist, half-Fantasy Gaul is still as gripping as in the first volume of the series! Jaworsky is definitively a master narrator and it's a book you'll have a hard time to let dwon before finishing it, believe me!

So far in 2021: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2021/post37

Maigret and the Yellow Dog - Georges Simenon

The 6th book of the Maigret series. M. Mostaguen, the wine dealer at Concarneau, a small Brittany city, is wounded by a gunshot when returning home drunk from the local Admiral Hotel and Maigret, who is organizing the mobile squad in Rennes, is called in by the Mayor to solve the crime. Maigret settles down at the hotel and discovers a set of curious characters.

Published in 1931, it plunges you in the suffocating atmosphere of a provincial small city. A very good book, with a slow pace as usual with Maigret stories, which almost deals as much with the crime itself as with the local society and the usual differences between "those who have/who are" and "those who have nothing/aren't anybody".

So far in 2021: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2021/post37

I’ve read a book called "Little Women" by Louise May Alcott. The novel is about four sisters, their life, friendship, growing up. In short, for me it’s a one-time book. Of course, today the book will seem very boring for modern young girls. There is not even a storyline here. Description of their boring measured life, their worries, children's desires. Although it would be useful for them to read, because children's selfishness is still relevant today. This book is also suitable for a more adult female audience, there is something to think about child-rearing. The story is not modern at all, and the book is not very exciting, but I do not regret having read it. A recommendation only for lovers of women's classics.

Maigret at the Crossroads - Georges Simenon

The seventh adventures of Maigret. This time it's more like a thriller and less like a social study. A dark story of stolen diamonds and a murder, of treason, desire and pride.

Very interesting change of pace here, even if the pace of the book doesn't change much. But it's an approach that could be qualified as more "modern" than his former novels.

So far in 2021: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2021/post37

Shadows of Self

I'd still call this "light" Sanderson, and for that matter "light" Mistborn, if compared to the original trilogy. There's very little worldbuilding and it even misses that focus on the magic system found in The Alloy of Law, adding little and no longer going into details. In addition, Wax goes from the most developed and interesting character to perhaps the least so. He can definitely fight, making for a few thrilling scenes in a book that also has fewer such moments overall, but that's pretty much all he is, the hand, the sword, the gun, whatever you prefer, Marasi, Wayne and maybe even one or two secondary characters having much more to offer.
That said, after a first part that quite clearly fits this "light" description, more and more social commentary makes its way through and much of what comes from Marasi in particular is definitely relevant if you think about recent and current events in our world as well, Marasi seeming to take over the spot of the most developed and interesting character this time around. There are interesting bits of a different nature coming from Wayne as well, though he otherwise remains too stereotypical and the fact that the main characters operate separately more often than not means that the way in which they fit and work together isn't so relevant anymore, which hurts his "value" the most.
Though not at the level seen in The Alloy of Law, the antagonist again has an understandable motivation and makes some valid points, at least once they're finally revealed, bringing some theological issues into debate as well. And the overall story stands well enough on its own but also seems to lead the way towards something much greater and deeper while at the same time connecting with the original trilogy. As such, if indeed intended as a "stepping stone", it does a good job, also remaining enjoyable and, at least if seen through the lens of these "lighter" expectations, satisfying. Don't expect reminders or much exposition, however, so those who forgot important details may need to refresh their memory.

Rating: 4/5