So here we have it, the final book of the trilogy. With two amazing books before it, could this keep up the pace.

As you can imagine this is all about tyeing up the loose ends and bringing everything together and there has been a lot happening through out the series so far. The book starts out a lot slower than the other two, not a criticism but I cant really remember the first few chapters, it was very much like a grand master game of chess, mostly about getting all of the pieces in the correct place. It also dropped in a few clearing up points, like why Inigo disappeared off into the galaxy, why Araminta was so important in the whole scheme of things.

It was quite different to the previous two books, not sure if it was as good despite the way that everything cumulated into a single point (nope, no spoilers here). It was once again extremely well written and very easy to read, it only took me a couple of weeks despite being as large as the previous two. The though process in how each story intertwined was amazing. I'm not sure if it was the fact that it was the end of the series or that there were still a few loose ends, I was left feeling a little bit disappointed. I think a sign of it not being quite as good is my struggling to write this review, if you can call these little post such things. After the previous triumphs of the first two in the series and all that I could say about them but refrained to not add any spoilers, this one is almost the opposite.

Overall though the entire series has been amazing and it is certainly something that I would seriously recommend to anyone that is into SciFi as it is truly up there with anything I have read from Banks, Asher, et al. It was only this week, when choosing the next lot of books that I realised how lacking I am when it comes to reading some of the past SciFi master such as Herbet, Asimov and Clarke but that is something that I will hopefully make amends on, possible not with in this challenge but certainly very soon.

Just because all the other books lead you here and this is mopping up all the stories and it is still beautifully written and complex I am going to give it 4.5 out of 5 and I will very shortly be moving on to the prequels that tell the story of the formation of the commonwealth and I'm certainly looking forward to both of those.