http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2012/11/kitchen-sink-review-of-the.html ( )

http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2012/11/kitchen-sink-review-of-the.html ( )

The first book in this series was great. The second was a slog. I was hoping the 3rd would be less of a slog, but it really wasn't. We started the series with a really cool concept- a future society built on maximalist capitalist principles, with a neat backstory about the dangers of Virtual Reality. And the revolution against this society makes sense too- but it has veered into something else. What seemed like it would be an exploration of the morality of different economic systems turned into a war series. The authors are clearly fascinated by military strategies and tactics in space, and I just find that boring.
On a better note, the authors are also exploring the morality of Total War and who is a non-combatant. But I find the characters too one-dimensional to convincingly face these moral dilemmas. The President of the UHF is just pure evil. The unincorporated woman is absurdly brilliant, fitting into a new society with ridiculous speed and immediately besting her peers in political acumen in a world she has just joined. The soldiers on both sides are absurdly brave and sacrificing- now that all the venal and stupid ones have been killed.

With all that said, I'm reading the 4th book right away. The story is interesting and of course I want to know what happens! I just can't shake the feeling that this war that has consumed 2+ volumes could have been condensed into one and made all the points it wanted to make. ( )

The Unincorporated Woman being the third volume in The Unincorporated Man quartet, is the beginning of the end, in both the story and the quality.
As mentioned in my reviews of parts 1(The Unincorporated Man) and 2(The Unincorporated War), the standard of writing and core ideas established in the debut novel were left behind and forgotten by the authors.

The only reason I insisted on buying the book, is the false hope that maybe Kollin brothers would come back and develop further their original ideas of The Unincorporated Man, but that didn't happen.
So don't fall for the same trick as I did.

What's worse, is that even the military action is of much poorer quality than in the part 2(the saving grace of that book).
The writing quality is reduced, the characters are even flatter and less realistic, the characters' actions are implausible, and events have artificial feel.
The AIs are almost entirely reduced to cartoon characters (although they "think" at speeds several times faster than people, and presumably have centuries of experience, and have been literally raising the humans they have been assigned to).
The main antagonist, is portrayed simplistically mad with power - loosing all plausibility, that was built into the character in earlier books.

The authors then meticulously describe how racial purity is essential in allowing people into the main religion emphasized in the book – genetic tests and all, and how God might have a grand plan for that particular genetic make up... (!) and this was somehow presented as a good thing (!) As you can imagine that really shocked me, as it should any sensible person...
Furthermore, in a world where past religious and ethnic conflicts, differences and prejudices have truly been forgotten (as clearly described throughout The Unincorporated Man and to lesser degree The Unincorporated War), where a regular Joe wouldn't be able to point out ethnic ancestry, where names of countries are a thing of the distant forgotten past and no one can name but a few, ... somehow characters start to spontaneously selectively resurrect one and only one very specific ethnic prejudice – as in the case of Hecor Sambianco – who out of the blue is deemed by the authors to become an anti-semite.

From that moment on and into the next and final volume, the authors seemed to have abandoned every endeavor – Novel idea of personal incorporation, Artificial Intelligence, human plight in times of conflict, or exhilarating space battles – except one, to draw parallels to World War II in a very heavy-handed and blatant way.

This is not The Unincorporated Man I so enjoyed, appreciated and treasured. It's not even a shadow of that first wonderful, thought provoking and truly surprisingly novel (so difficult to accomplish in Sci Fi today) book.

I did give it 3 stars simply because the first book left so much momentum. But by itself The Unincorporated Woman could never stand. ( )