Lords of Uncreation

The third and last installment in The Final Architecture space opera series had some high expectations to meet, with a story hinging on the nature of all reality and the stakes set to the possible extinction of all intelligent planet-dwelling life in the universe. We readers have suffered along with the crew of the Vulture God who just happened to sit right at each crucial intersection of galactic forces warring with the unknown menace out of Unspace and by now are wondering what agonies they will be put through in this last outing. I feel like the story comes off exceeding my hopes, adding intriguing and unexpected plot details as all the twisted plot strands get tied up. The heroes don't get out of this completely unscathed but the losses are all invested with meaning for the reader, and the characters who make it through intact are changed by the trial in a convincing manner. Some antagonists do get put in their place too and the whole mystery behind the uncanny universe-building setup basically holds up thanks to some ingenious prose work. It's a thick book but I felt pulled through faster as the climax neared. Half of my pleasure, as I mentioned in my earlier reviews, was due to the virtuosic narration by the audiobook narrator Sophie Aldred. Top rating to a fun deep space thriller which held up its end of the bargain on so many levels.