Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

So, first of all, Longarm telling Kami that wearing a mask/goggles when swimming makes her more attractive 'cos more mechanical?   I totally agree, and I will love you, Longarm!   

Secondly, the title of this review makes sense.  Knockout is a motorcycle who learns not to be so impatient, speaks like most of the other Cybertronians and doesn't have much of a personality.  Knock Out, the Decepticon medic in Transfromers Prime is an amazingly snarky bot who's obsessed with his finish.   He's amazing, and three dimensional and way better than Knockout.   Much like everything in Prime is better than everything in the Bayverse.  

But why does this novel suck?   It's more than 'compared to the better TF continuities, you don't hold up'.   Nope, it's the fact that the original human character are a Mary Sue and Gary STu.   I get it, they have to be top-notch to be in NEST.   But they don't have any real weaknesses, they take down Decepticons, and they're good at things - like really, super good - that have nothing to do with their jobs/anything related to NEST.   I have a feeling the occasional poor grammar is 'oh, look, how cute, the Russian can't speak proper English.'   Because it only really happens with him, and it's big stuff like important words missing from sentences.   If this is this case, then it doesn't work.   He speaks so poorly once or twice, but usually has no trouble with any of his grammar.   So, it's either poor writing and editing, or a poor use of purposefully poor grammar to be a little bit of a racist dick about this whole thing.  I swear to Primus, I hope it's just poor editing this time. 

Continuity plot holes, like the metallic crab that you make sure to make note that hey it's noticeable, but the soldiers don't notice despite the assumption they're very well trained, and very observant to be working at NEST headquarters given that the security is so tight.

All the robots pretty much talk alike, no one has any real characters, and there's no Bee.   And really, if you have Barricade show up, why not drag Bee into this seeing as they've got this feud going on in the Bayverse?

That's not going into the fact that this doesn't really end, and while it tries to make it a smooth lead into the second movie - it doesn't.    Especially since the original characters kinda don't make it into the movie.  Neither do some of the Decepticons from this book that don't get killed from what I remember. 

Why two stars instead of one, or one half, then?   Well, the speech is a little better; some of the characters sound like they're not clones of Optimus Prime.   And Barricade!   Eee!

Yeaaah.  I've had a big Barricade fixation as of late.   So including him at all gets bonus points/a half a star.   The other star is for slight improvement over the last book.   Overall? This was unsatisfying.   But... still, robots I guess.