Rating: 3.5 out of 5
So, I got to the end… From some of the hugely enjoyable titles to this one, the author’s style and perceptiveness seem to vary hugely. Not that this wasn’t a great instalment but in many ways I was left wanting. The crux of the matter is that what was previously primarily a story about military conquest (or there political need for continuous military conquest) is solved completely differently.
What did our poor characters do? Nothing too much and yet enough. Given the final enemy who had to be defeated was no longer the enemy that everyone set out to destroy, which to be fair was an interesting way to change the way things were unfolding, the reactions that people took to this were the ones most worth following. Whether Eujen or Straessa, the new lead heroes were all you could want from them.
The old group were the ones who disappointed me, however, with many of them in their old grudges, somehow failing to acknowledge how they had successfully worked together for a fair bit of time already. This led to some odd moments, under which I also include the final battle between the two bosses. What’s weird from one point of view is what actually enables the so-called final solution for the Empire, which makes it possible to appreciate that for the series to end, things almost had to end up like this.
There is also a good bit of politics in this, and it was this that I found most enjoyable. Tynan, Wasp general was perhaps the most interesting character of the book because of how he managed to overcome political dangers and amend things – what exactly I mean by this I will leave cryptic to not present a spoiler at the end.
Overall, it was a good book but not the best in the series by my reckoning.
