This is the fifth Ian Cormac novel, and really felt like a series conclusion. Its scope is massive, galaxy affecting, and its repercussions fleshed out without remorse. It's no secret than in this novel, millions and millions of people and sentient AI die, and many die gruesomely, graphically depicted. It's a great read, well written and well paced with plenty of large scale events throughout the novel. I particularly enjoyed the creation and deployment of the largest, most destructive weapon ever devised, outside of intentionally caused supernovae. It builds on the work in Prador Moon in this respect, another Asher novel I really, really enjoyed.
I also thought the development of Cormac in this novel was really cool. He was a lot more cynical and paranoid, and seemed quite pissed off much of the time. Of course, he has been through a lot in the series, so his character changes make perfect sense. Again, repercussions of this, relentlessly pushed to the end.
The end is completely satisfying. Many novels attempting such large scale really peter out at the end, but not this one. Asher spends a lot of time going over the events in glorious detail, from large explosions to the tiny communications between entities. Most of the hanging threads from the series are well tied up with explanations detailed. In particular, the Dragon character is really opened up.
Excellent.
1 comment:
Really glad that you think that, Owen. The one thing I didn't want to do at the end was fizzle or use a deus ex machina cop-out. Cheers!
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