BOOK REVIEW: EXTINCT EXTRACTED BOOK 3 BY RR HAYWOOD

Extinct Extracted Book 3
Author: RR Haywood
Publisher: 47 North
Reviewed By: Sandra Scholes

As part of a three book set of novels in the Extracted series, this is its final act with Miri and her extracted friends trying to prevent the end of the world. In an ideal world, that would happen, bit Miri, Harry and friends know different. They have to find a way to stop Mother and her cohorts from destroying the world in the future of 2111.


This small group of friends want to save the world but by going back in time they also have to bear in mind that in saving each other from death they can drastically alter the timeline causing further problems. That said, neither of them wants to see each other dead so the problem of time being affected continues.

I felt relieved that there was a short recap of what happened in the last book; Bertie had made a red time machine and then when his friends had gone back several times to prevent the apocalypse they notice the people in that period have changed. The two-time lines have somehow got twisted making it even harder for them to defeat their enemies and right a bleak future. Mother, having been sacked from her job decides to use her own time machine to hunt down and kill Maggie Sanderson, but even Mother knows it will be a hard task to do. She has her best men around to do the job but even Alphas can fail to bring her in.

Thankfully extraction is explained early on in the novel as: "taking someone from their timeline." A lot of the final novel spends most of the time jogging around the futures with both sides trying to get oneupmanship on the other in an attempt at conveying the atmosphere of a Bond novel with a futuristic apocalyptic tone. The plot itself is simple enough as its similar to what might happen in a 70's TV series like The Avengers or Blake's 7. Two factions are fighting one good the other devastatingly bad. It does make for a good read but has added elements of humour in it that could be considered unnecessary at times; especially Mother who is a baddie who is as strong as she is efficient being made to look comical kind of falls flat, though when the same amount of humour is applied to the resistance band, it works in some ways and not others as these are supposed to be young people fleeing oppression. Instead, they are seen acting as though they are only planning to.

There are scenes from the novel that reminded me of scenes from popular movies. RR Haywood's use of "Unknown adult male. The use of revolting, abusive or insulting words is prohibited in this public place." brought to mind the scene where Stallone's character swears and an automated machine ticks him off in Demolition Man. Even from this last book it seemed to me there was plenty going on to keep the reader focused not just on the plot but interesting characters all who have their own story.