The Impossible Cube

by Steven Harper

Reviewed by Ruby

Alice and Gavin have escaped the carnage of the Doomsday Vault and have released the cure into the world. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what the Empire wanted and they have been labeled enemies of the Crown. They are now flying across Europe to spread the cure faster but also to get to China. Gavin has been infected and became a Clockworker. The plague will slowly drive him mad until it kills him and they are racing to China in the hopes that one of China’s Dragonmen will have come up with the cure to his strain.

But since life is never that simple, the remnants of the Third Ward are out for revenge. Not only was their headquarters blown up but since their job was to collect Clockworkers and hand over all useful inventions to the British Crown they have become useless since Alice released the cure, stopping all new Clockworkers from forming.

Alice and Gavin are racing against time and former friends but the greatest danger comes from a source that they don’t even see and it could destroy them all.

After the awesomeness that was Book 1, I was very disappointed while reading this one. The chemistry that Gavin and Alice had was gone and replaced with very forced tension. The plot was slow in parts and seemed to take a long time to get anywhere. A good chunk of it felt like filler. The characters degraded for me a bit and some of the decision making didn’t make any sense. Even Philips wasn’t handled properly. All that stuff about her past was meant for us to get to know her better and understand her but the reasons she did what she did throughout the entire book and especially at the very end, left me confused.

I was expecting so much more from this book.

Grade: C