This is bizarre.   After three trilogy length novels — two spanning decades and one a few centuries — going into glorious detail and getting the reader really involved with the characters and their situations, we now have a story spanning tens of millennia that’s only a short: WTF?

It all feels extremely rushed, utterly lacking in depth and just seems like Alastair threw it together before breakfast to meet some publisher’s needs before he went on holiday.

Ho hum, we can’t really expect all of Alastair’s books to be excellent.   This one’s very disappointing.

Anyways, this is the last story in the whole series for now.   Just a bit of a wait until Inhibitor Phase is released on 26th August 2021.

It’s certainly been a blast reading the whole series in one go, it was just under 3 months ago when i began Great Wall of Mars.   And no inbetweenies due to boredom: this is one of those series that you just want to keep on reading without any other books getting involved.

Available in the collection, Galactic North.

Alastair’s Page

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If you’re not into reading a whole trilogy crammed into one book then i’d suggest staying away: this book is huge.   But if you’ve got this far you’ve just read two books of similar length so you’re used to it by now — dive right in.

My thoughts are that this book just doesn’t come up to the same level as the previous two.   I think it’s because everything in this universe that we’ve come to know is all getting torn apart into molecules by the Inhibitors and there’s not much left of life as we once knew it.   It’s all quite depressing really, as are some of the characters.   And while i like a writer who isn’t afraid to kill off a main character or several, i was a bit put out by one of them as i really wanted to hear more from them: i won’t say which one because it would spoil the whole book.

But, this is war, this is the threatened annihilation of the human race, so we can’t expect it to be all upbeat and fun — can we?

So yeah, straight into Galactic North now and then it’s a bit of a wait for Inhibitor Phase to be published on 26th August 2021.

Alastair’s Page

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Oooh wow, now that was a really good read, extremely lengthy but really good.

This time we’re back in the Yellowstone system but our old friends (or enemies, depending on how you view them), the Conjoiners are back, along with a few blasts from the distant past: don’t worry, you’ll soon catch up with who’s who again.

When Ilia activated the cache weapons in the last book the Conjoiners, whose weapons they actually happen to be, received an alert that they’ve been activated and it’s not too long before they decide that they’re going to get them back.   But there’s rifts amongst the Conjoiners, who aren’t as conjoined as they might seem, and some want the weapons for a different reason.

And so it’s off to Resurgam, via Chasm City, in souped up lighthuggers that bend the laws of physics, in a crazy game of star-ship-chase-me as the different factions want to get there first and get the cache weapons — both gleefully trying to throw a spanner in the other’s works along the way.

And what a great time is going to be had when we get to Resurgam, what with the Inhibitors now unleashed by Sylveste’s previous shenanigans, running amok and making to destroy the whole solar system, and also Ilia having absolutely no desire to give up her weapons to anyone.

There’s also lots of other great story telling things and characters going on besides — like a whole planet to evacuate before the inhibitors burn it to death.   You won’t be bored.

Super good and now it’s straight into Absolution Gap.

Alastair’s Page

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