2005 gaslamp fantasy, last of its trilogy. The Gardier are still
invading; Vienne has fallen; and our heroes are a long way from home.
Really don't read this in isolation. There are lots of moving
pieces in this story, and while you may be able to work out roughly
what's going on you'll lose most of the emotional resonance of what
these characters have been through. There are also multiple
viewpoints, mostly Tremaine and Florian but with significant
excursions.
There is a certain amount of plot device here (the disembodied remnant
of a dead character dispenses ambiguous informatoin), but that's only
to get things started.
So there's a new sort of world-gate, and some of our heroes set out to
explore them in the hope of learning more about the invading Gardier.
It's becoming increasingly clear that the Gardier haven't always been
like this, that they changed within living memory, but how did that
happen?
"We mean no harm. We wish to talk."
Tremaine found herself sort of almost willing to believe that. If
you were planning a triple murder of sleeping people, she was fairly
sure you didn't send Grandpa in first, especially unarmed.
Meanwhile there are politics and shenanigans back aboard the Queen
Ravenna: this potential ally is really powerful, but can he be
trusted? (If your answer is "obviously not, we've met him before",
well, you're going to be a problem to the people who want to use him,
and they have political pull.)
"Join the Rienish navy," the woman sailor remarked, watching this
process with distaste. "See unusual sights. Never sleep with the
lights out again."
"This is nothing," the officer told the woman wryly, holding the bag
out at arm's length. "You should have seen the man-thing with the
crystals all over it. They're still finding bits of him."
But the plot isn't even the meat of the story; this is about the
people more than anything else, both on a small scale (trying to
dissolve a hasty marriage before it hurts the people involved) and on
a large (considering the ethics of slaughtering an enemy who've been
comprensively lied to to get them onto the battlefield in the first
place)
"If you raise a daughter to be both independent and an excellent
marksman, you have to accept the fact that your control over her
actions is at an end."
As usual with Wells, it's a wordy book; but they're good words. A
fine conclusion to the trilogy.