I feel like the author is struggling to find something for her multitude of secondary characters to do. They get a plot of their own, and though small, it’s interesting, action-packed -I just hope it's relevant to the larger plot in the end.

It turns out I was right after all, back in Dissonance –Olivia Montegreu survived, after a fashion. Her AI absorbed some of her vengeful personality, and after her death, is lashing out. The Prevos are targeted, and the AI is even using her voice to threaten them.

Devon’s girlfriend gets hit first, and Devon spends the time watching her in the hospital, until Morgan is hit by a runaway car. Mia’s house is attacked, but thankfully Malcolm is watching over her, and kills the attackers. So while Mia searches for a cure to the nano-computer virus attacking Annie, most of them end up in the hospital at the same time.

Which makes it ripe for another attack. It’s clear the AI is not fully functional, as Olivia certainly limited its power due to her selfish nature. It sends trained thugs, but underestimates the Prevos, who get to do a lot of really cool counter-attacking.

It takes the anti-virus and the resurrection of Stanley to bring Morgan back, which will hopefully give us some interesting stories as they try to come to terms with what happened to separate them.

In a side story, Kennedy wants to get married, but Noah doesn’t, and they have a fight, which ends predictably with both of them changing their minds and apologizing to each other. It was cute, but fluff. It did give us a way to see some of the factories producing tens of thousands of ships, some controlled by AI, getting ready for the war against the Anaden. Everyone knows it’s coming – it’s just a matter of time.

Miriam is her usual brusque self, confident and getting things done. The world somehow seems smaller since the war with the Metigens ended, the galaxy less interesting. I guess it’s really hard to keep up that kind of galactic storytelling when the story starts moving another way. The technology has plateaued for a bit, but it’s the way they use it that keeps it interesting. I was happy reading about their day-to-day without the action, because it was so interesting. Of course, the action kept the story moving.

The Aurora galaxy plot and subcharacters had to take on a more minor role here, because we get a whole new society, full of culture, power, and rebellion. Mesme had warned Alex and humanity about the Anadens and their empire, the way they snuffed out races, and how the Metigens rescued some, transporting them to their network of pocket universes. Now, we get to see it in action.

The author did a great job at making the Anadens a cohesive yet not monotonic species. They are split into castes, and I don’t think there’s a lot of cross-breeding among them. The leadership caste, the presaedis, are in charge, but each caste is respected and essential in this millions of years old society. There is no death, as the Anadens –at least those associated with a caste- are connected to technology that can put their essence and mind into a new body.

The society is shown through an outcast, the anarch Eren, who as a terrorist blows up large objects in space, like the wormhole leading to another galaxy. He used to be part of the hedonistic caste, but saw through the masks of society to become disenchanted, and the anarchs found him.

I liked how Alex and Caleb could slip into Anaden roles easily, because the Anadens didn’t think anybody could threaten them, and of course didn’t even know the Aurora universe existed. Where in Aurora they didn’t find any aliens, by Metigen design, here they come across many. I liked the author’s introduction to the various species we meet, usually given through Mesme or Eren’s eyes.

Eren identifies Mesme as a Kataskatousya, shortened to Kat most of the time I read it, though it was fun to try and pronounce it for the first few times. More interesting, he thinks the Kats are the Anaden’s most faithful servants. They can live basically forever, teleport anywhere, and never have to return to their host bodies on their homeworld. So when it becomes known that they have betrayed the empire, they lose their Preferred Species status, and their world is set for destruction. But the Anaden are so arrogant that they don’t even check to see if any Kats are left, which there aren’t of course, as their bodies have been transported to a tiny out of the way place where resources have already dried up.

Alex is the bigger risk taker, even though Caleb is used to taking risks. Together, they are formidable. They impersonate an Inquisitor to kidnap Eren, introduce him to a bunch of human traditions, technology and wine (which he thought was delightful). He’s wary, but intrigued, disbelieving of their story but open to it possibly being true.

Most intriguing is Caleb’s mastery of diati, the power of the inquisitors and presaedis. Caleb stole the powerful energy from the inquisitor who tried to kill them in Abyss, and here he uses it to shield them, to attack others, and eventually, to steal more diati from other inquisitors.

The names of the different castes, the species and the power they held were hard to master at first, but by the end of the book they mostly rolled off the tongue. By his third death of the book, Eren has agreed to help them, and that they could be beneficial to his cause, which is to annoy the Anaden leaders, though he never thought they could actually overthrow them.

He helps them infiltrate a machim (military) stronghold, Caleb impersonating an inquisitor again, hiding Eren with their invisibly shield, and when they get to their destination, Mesme brings Alex over through teleportation, so Valkyrie can slice into their computer and download ship designs and patrol movements, old campaigns and other interesting information.

This was one of the best scenes in the book, as they succeed, then get caught, Eren is shot but resurrected, Valkyrie flees to transmit the information to Miriam, Alex is tortured, Caleb steals more diati and escapes, and Mesme and Eren get them out. It was pleasantly exhausting. But of course, now their secret is out, confirmed by an inquisitor who was following the trail of the missing inquisitor who went after Caleb in the last book. She reports back to the presaedis (who gives her some of his diati to restore her power), and they order an attack on the Kat homeworld.

The diati is alive, another strange alien in a universe full of them, from shadow beings to aliens who seem to thrill on danger (how do they survive so long?), and more. Through Caleb’s unexplained dreams, I believe the diati are the ones who nurtured the Anadens, to defeat an even stronger foe who was destroying the galaxy. They bonded with the Anaden leader, and grew subservient to him and his offspring. Now they know nothing else. The computing devices the Anadens use are also alive, though the castes use them as nothing more than computers. I wonder how they came to be enslaved. Even Mesme doesn’t know if they are truly alive, though they respond to Alex and Valkyrie.

All of this sets the stage for the final battle, as the machim are sent to destroy the Aurora universe and the gates to the Kataskatousya network, except for the ones that lead to vital resources that the Anadens need. Miriam and the Prevos on the Aurora side have been pouring through Anaden tactics and ship types, weaknesses and strategies, thanks to Valkyrie's data dump. She brings forty thousand ships with her through the network, which I thought was a lot, until the Anadens showed up with many times that number.

The author has developed many cool technologies for when humans were fighting humans, then humans were fighting metigens, and then getting ready for this war. There are zero-energy devices, others that suck things into another dimension then throw it back, and more. Miriam is a master strategist, even against a species she’s never met before.

I have a feeling this is only the beginning. Malcolm was able to surprise the Anaden ship with the problem they encountered with the multi-dimensional technology, turning its waste into a weapon, but not before Mesme stole the doomsday black hole device. I liked the way technology from the previous series and books were used here, never forgotten. The Metigen ships were brought in as a last-minute support fleet, while Alex used sidespace to scout for the doomsday weapon.

Reading about Alex and Caleb’s adventures was fun. Add the Amaranthe universe with its aliens, and the new human toys and it’s great to return to.