The monkey Ack-Ack Macaque and former journalist Victoria Valois is out to save the world. Also, Victoria must finally face the fact that she has to say goodbye to Paul and Ack-Ack learns that he is to be a father...

This is the third and last book in the Ack-Ack Macaque series and even though I looked forward reading this book did I have some trepidation about reading the last book in a series without reading the first two. But it went well, surprisingly well actually. I mean sure there was stuff from the first two books like the mentioning of the hive mind Gestalt, but it was very good explained in this book so I never really felt left out of the story. I actually got more interested in reading the first two books.

It was an action-filled book, a fast read with great characters and I recommend this to everyone that likes monkeys...lol and people that like action and adventure and a really well-written story!

Thank to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review! ( )

The trilogy ends with a story that starts out as more of what we've had already, with the good stuff (Ack-Ack himself, massive nuclear-powered Zeppelins) and more of the not-so-good stuff (the repeated info-dumps, the Alphaville effect - everything reads as if it's the present day, not 2059 - and the occasional curve ball thrown in - in this case, someone uses an "information crystal" to replay a recorded video, and I went "When did we get those?" because I don't recollect anyone mentioning information crystals up to now).

But we get new plot revelations thrown into the mix, and they come at us thick and fast. And Ack-Ack has an epiphany and turns from an uplifted monkey with a video game server running in his wetware to some sort of Flying Dutchman figure voyaging the infinite streams of human existence in search of something to blow up. This happens with quite indecent haste; the fate of the Anglo-French monarchy is almost consigned to a footnote in comparison. Not a satisfying end to a trilogy which really couldn't maintain the promise of the initial idea itself. ( )

I've compared the previous two instalments in this trilogy (Ack-Ack Macaque and Hive Monkey) to the TV show Doctor Who: they're fast-paced, campy romps with just the right balance of science fantasy absurdity and empathetic characters who convince you to soldier on with it. Continuing on with that metaphor, Macaque Attack is a fairly typical RTD-era series finale (or even the finale of your average two-parter)… it's where the showrunners have decided to just do everything, all at once, to the point that you can no longer follow what's meant to be happening and some overwrought emotional scenes can't really make up for the fact that the characters have long since been overwhelmed by “plot”.

Anyway, the good news is, at the end of the book we discover that none of the events that took place in this trilogy were real anyway. So I guess it doesn't really matter that I struggled to follow along. Sort of a disappointing way for it all to end really. ( )