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Throughout my reading, I wondered when the main story of Jason, Leo, and Piper would intersect with the search for Percy. I wish I’d caught on earlier to the larger picture, but I did manage to put it together before the big reveal toward the end.

Never during this adventure did I think it would be a self-contained story. Despite knowing it’s a five book series, just the text itself makes it clear this is an introduction to new main characters, and they need their own story to avoid being overshadowed by those characters we know and love already.

The new prophecy tells us we’ll be balancing between seven major heroes. Obviously, our new three plus Percy and Annabeth make five, but who will the final two be? Thalia? Grover? Nicco? Someone new? That’s a lot of characters to keep up with. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the follow-up books are as good as this one.

I’m not a big fan of the lost memory trope, but in the larger scope of the series, it plays an integral part in bringing characters together, so I really admire Riordan’s use of it here. And, even at the end, I’m wondering what we’ll discover about Jason that he’s just now remembering.

Finally, I love how Riordan is using the Greek and Roman aspects of the gods, their differences, and even how those differences have created Earthly conflict. I’m really looking forward to the rest of this series, and if he does something similar with the Egyptian and Norse gods, I might continue with the other series.

This is a great start to a series.

The opening of this book is pretty solid for creating suspense on the topic, then Hill moves into the history of facial recognition, which slows the narrative considerably; however, the book is well worth sticking with. Once the author moves into use cases and stories, the danger of ubiquitous facial recognition becomes pretty clear.

One of the reviews I read would like Hill to lean away from politics, particularly because she’s clearly anti-Trump, probably because he’s made it very clear that he’ll use any means necessary to punish his “enemies.”

I don’t have any issues with either the overt or implied integration of politics in this book because the use of facial recognition will be (is?) inherently political. What happens when someone comes into power in the U.S. or another country whose views I don’t agree with?

Whether that person is a local sheriff or the POTUS doesn’t really matter. Technology can be weaponized against anyone, so avoiding the political lens is nearly as dangerous as the technology itself. We must consider both the positive and negative use cases, and then create barriers to limit the negative uses of the technology if possible.

Hill does a nice job telling the emotional story of the technology. Reading the tale of the man mis-identified by ClearView, arrested without followup evidence, and then held for a few days is heartbreaking. I hope his family gets a good settlement and the deputies in that story learn a powerful lesson, something better than, “Oh, hey, he really doesn’t look like the guy in this photo. Maybe we should have done more checking first.”

While ClearView-level facial recognition can solve a lot of problems like making it easier to separate and identify looters and rioters during a protest, it will also make it easier for the opposing side to identify and harass those participating in a legal protest. It provides tools for stalkers to unmask the pseudonyms of sex workers, making them less safe. It will make separating oneself from the past, getting a fresh start nearly impossible. Witness protection will be dead.

This technology makes the unforgiving nature of the internet just that much more permanent.

Clearly, at book 34 I’m a dedicated Sandford fan, and I usually love the Prey novels, but until the last few chapters, this book was a slog. The only reason I’m giving this three stars is because I loved the ending.

This is supposed to be a Letty and Lucas adventure, but they don’t really do anything together. However, I definitely enjoyed Lucas’s dad-comments toward Letty’s new partner. I also liked Hawkins and Letty together. The two characters come from different backgrounds and have different values, in much the same way Winter and Lucas are different. They complement each other.

Dedicated series readers shouldn’t worry about rushing to the end… go ahead, rush. The whole chase is monotonous and was done better in both 12 Monkeys and Inferno. Enjoy the end though. I found it pretty satisfying. The scene where another law enforcement officer threatens to shoot Lucas if he does what he promises is one of the few great moments of tension and suspense in the whole story.

The only criticism I can muster for this book is my desire for more examples within my field, so authors, if you create a 4DX geared specifically at education, running a district and schools, I’ll be first in line.

As an educator in struggling Nevada, I’ve seen one or two elements of 4DX implemented time and again without success; however, never with a scoreboard or lead indicator weekly goal settings.

We revisit goals annually at every level of our district, and we’ve implemented PLC time daily for teachers to meet and to share ideas and review their goals, and at one point a principal had teachers set weekly goals. But, eventually everything falls apart as everything gets swept up in the whirlwind.

I love the approach with these disciplines, the idea that we can’t eliminate or often alter the whirlwind. The work is the work is the work, but if we fundamentally want to change things, we have to set bite sized, achievable, weekly goals that will move the needle for achievement. And, all of the disciplines, supported by all leaders, are critical to prevent the plan from falling apart.

The Disciplines: Focus on the wildly important Act on the lead measures Keep a compelling scoreboard Create a cadence of accountability

For me, the lead measures and the scoreboard hold the most interest because I haven’t really seen change management implement these two. I’ve also not seen really successful change management.

Two items I really appreciate about this book are the clarity around the disciplines and the examples. The whole second and third sections are devoted to examples.

After reading this, I’m really looking forward to our training session later in the month, and I’m excited to see how we move forward.