And the explanation for how the virus got out of the computer and mutated is just as poorly thought out. Even when the scientists admit that such a thing as a psychically viral tape couldn't have existed in the virtual reality, they give no explanation of how such an anomaly could have been introduced without an outside source.

The explanation given for how the ring virus became a cancer doesn't make sense, especially with the virus being coded from within a virtual reality simulation that was made to emulate our world exactly. This book is a huge cop out written to undermine the apocalyptic buildup of the first two books. The question is asked, but the answer is 'I don't know.'

All I can say is, there's no logical reason given for why the ring virus was even possible in the first place. I want to break down why it's such a massive failure, but I can't without spoilers. Passages speak of a woman's 'sex organ' and her 'fluids' in such a way that all I could do was shake my head at the consistently clinical tone.Īnd then the punchline came, and I got pissed. Following intimate scenes and thoughts are worded in such a way as to negate any stimulating reaction. His mother Machiko is flat and more a background noise than a functioning character, and his romantic interest, Reiko, is seduced in a clinical description that makes their first time together sound like rape. Kaoru is a bland character, and his 'loving dad,' Hideyuki, comes off as creepy, but isn't quite creepy enough to provoke a reaction. While I felt the first books were creepy and scary in some parts, if a bit dry, this book is dry as a bone left in the middle of a desert, and there's nothing I can feel for the story or the characters. I finally reached that point and got started, and for the first 400 pages, I didn't feel anything at all. It put me off of reading it, so I figured I'd just set aside until I forgot the finer points of the synopsis. I knew eventually I'd have to read Loop to complete this series, but when I initially couldn't find a copy of it anywhere, I opted to Wiki it, and read the basic synopsis.

The ring trilogy books