The Arc (The Third Book of The Loop Trilogy)

What I Liked: Ben Oliver delivers a super intense third and final look into the future with this dystopian thriller in the last book, THE ARC. There is a bookish meme about how you would love to live in a book. Well, this is not the book the meme was thinking of. This highly intense look at a potential future where computer technology has become sentient without developing empathy and determined that all humans should be wiped away is dire for the future of the human race. The only one with a chance to stop it is Luka but he was killed on the ARC in front of everyone after revealing the truth. The super scary part is that the AI, Happy, has made the remaining people so complacent that even when faced with the truth they believe it to be a lie and easily dismiss it. There are topics ripe for a book club discussion on the parallels to human behavior and our interaction with news and social media now.
The one exception is Chester who was swayed by Luka and willing to investigate at great risk to himself. That willingness to question and potentially sacrifice himself saves the human race because it leads him to a very alive Luka who is once again being tortured for scientific gain. The amount of trauma poor Luka has endured in this trilogy is thankfully just fiction. However, it does lead to PTSD when his mind reaches its breaking point on the depravity of Happy who can execute in the most brutal of ways to reach its goal. With Luka equipped with near-instantaneous healing, the boundaries of what he can be put through physically keep getting more horrific.
Final Verdict: There are many twists and narrow escapes and many friends are lost in the final showdown to stop Happy and save the human race. It was a quick read and a great book to use an audiobook with. One thing I noted about the audiobook is that the narrator didn’t really change voices between Chester and Luka’s perspectives which I think would have enhanced the telling. Also, while Luka is going through torturous ordeals the narrator uses a matter-of-fact tone. This could be because Luka is so far past typical situations that his mind has been reduced to cause and effect with little room to get emotional. If we did take time to deal with his emotional damage the book would be much longer and the ending would have been different. Overall, this was a very engaging read that made a great end to the series.