2014 SF; sequel to Honour's Knight. With most of the powers in the
known universe arrayed against her, Devi is still infected with the
virus that could solve everything (or bring it all crashing down).
This couldn't be anything but a final volume. All those dangling
plot threads that the two earlier books set up are tied off neatly
here. The good guys get their rewards; the bad guys get what's coming
to them.
Well, sort of. One of the things I've enjoyed about this series is the
lack of unambiguous bad guys. There are some people who do horrible
things, yes, but they have reasons for what they do: it's not just
the boring old "to make me rich" or "to get me power", it's "because I
think this is the only way to save humanity". The conflict here may
not be quite between a right and a right, but it is at least between
people who think they're right. And some of the worst punishments
handed out here, once all the shooting has stopped, are that the
people who made that call and were wrong about it have to go on living
with the knowledge of what they did.
That said, the romance that was a moderate part of the first book and
a significant part of the second is very much in the foreground here.
If you are the sort of SF reader who hates romance, you won't like
this book or this series, but it's really not a story that could have
been told without the kissing. I will admit that there's a bit of a
misstep when a minor character from the beginning of the first book
reappears; not only does he immediately butt heads with the new love
for no obvious reason, but either his behaviour here is wildly out of
character or Devi's previous taste in partners wasn't all that hot,
and her reaction isn't particularly great either.
The other difficulty is that sometimes the resolution feels a bit
too cathartic: yes, it's good when problems solve each other, but
perhaps there are slightly too many upsides and not enough downsides
in the eventual state of affairs? Still, I don't think this is a book
written to stand up to deep analysis: it's written to push the
reader's buttons, and my buttons were convincingly pushed.
This series is pulp with a heart. It's not great literature, and it's
not pretending to be, but for a piece of escapism it's surprisingly
thoughtful. Recommended, with caveats as noted.
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