The End of All Things

Historically I haven't been a big reader of multi-entry series, something I've been steadily working towards being more open minded about. I guess I'm afraid of committing to a longer story arc that I feel obliged to complete because of the sunk cost fallacy. Around book four I almost bailed on this one, but now that I'm on the other side of it I'm glad I stuck around for this satisfying ending.

This book is structured as four separate novellas that take place sequentially in the same universe but following different characters. And this felt like a great balance between the fun parts of sci-fi (body horror, military grunts with high-tech gadgets, spaceship battles) and the more serious elements of a larger story explaining the "why" of what's happening (political grandstanding, backroom deal-making, and ambassadors out the wazoo). All this without forcing an unnecessary romance or slapstick humor that some of the earlier entries had. This was a continuation of the more mature tone that book five developed, but with more action this time around.

The climax did feel a touch, well, anticlimactic, but I guess that's more a feature than a bug; by the time the main characters are forced to confront the central antagonizing force, we've seen them become so competent that they are able to - maybe not trivialize, but - outright meet and decisively neutralize the threat. Which was definitely more daring than staging a huge setpiece battle just for its own sake on the author's part.

Finally, I was gonna pat myself on the back for finishing something longer than a trilogy, until I just learned that a seventh book is expected to come out later this year, after a decade-long hiatus! With how this one stuck the landing though, I'm more willing to continue with this setting than I probably would've been a few months ago.