Catalyst Gate
The Protectorate series, Book 3
Megan E. O'Keefe
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since waking alone on the empty ship of her enemies, Commander Sanda Greeve has had her world turned upside-down and inside-out. The interstellar government to which she swore her life turns out to have been founded on a lie, its technology stolen from an ancient alien race and weaponized to prevent that race from returning to snatch its toys back. The artificial intelligence of the enemy ship, Bero, achieved sentience and turned on its makers. And the man who helped her escape and whom she fell in love with turned out to be part of a secretive ring of spies with unusual tech of their own, to the point where it's arguable whether Tomas is even human. Meanwhile, her brother Biran has undergone his own journey and rude awakenings, rising to the role of Speaker of the elite Protectorate only to discover the rot and lies within. Now Rainier, the legacy artificial intelligence originally tasked with guarding the alien tech, has gone insane, ready to culminate a generations-long plan to exterminate the upstart primates for the travesty they made of her creator's gifts. Sanda and Biran scramble to save their species from threats within and without, but their enemy has studied humanity for centuries and infiltrated every nook and cranny of civilization. Even as they race toward the final confrontation, they may already have lost.
REVIEW: The final installment of the (probable) trilogy maintains the high-octane pace of the series, shot through with firefights, betrayals, twists, and turns, with some spots of humor and character interplay along the way. Sanda and Biran and their companions must confront the sins of their species and Prime's founders, who built their entire spacefaring society on lies and bloodshed and greed and fear; even as they work to stop Rainier, they see just why the artificial intelligence has grown so enraged with the crimes of the species. Former Grotta thief Jules Valentine, meanwhile, continues on the dark path that led her to infect a large population with the corrupted "ascension" agent that helped her transcend her human limits (but which has devastating results on over ninety percent of its victims), finding it increasingly hard to justify her extreme means even in the name of saving the only person in the universe she has ever cared about. Things start at a high level of tension and only ratchet up from there, at times reaching near overwhelming levels, before a climactic conclusion that alters the trajectory of Prime and humanity's future, with the door cracked open just enough for sequel potential. It narrowly lost itself a half-star due to that sense of being a little overwhelmed and overloaded at times, plus some of the side characters and storylines felt a bit lost in the shuffle by the end, but the whole still makes for excellent, action-filled space opera that never forgets the flawed individuality of the characters involved.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
Velocity Weapon (Megan E. O'Keefe) - My Review
The Stars Now Unclaimed (Drew Williams) - My Review
No comments:
Post a Comment