Books: The Forbidden Stars By Tim Pratt (2019)

"Aliens known as the Liars gave humanity access to the stars through twenty-nine wormholes. They didn’t mention that other aliens, the ancient, tyrannical – but thankfully sleeping – Axiom occupied all the other systems. When the twenty-ninth fell silent, humanity chalked it up to radical separatists and moved on. But now, on board the White Raven, Captain Callie and her crew of Axiom-hunters receive word that the twenty-ninth colony may have met a very different fate. With their bridge generator they skip past the wormhole, and discover another Axiom project, fully awake, and poised to pour through the wormhole gate into all the worlds of humanity."

The Forbidden Stars is the enjoyable final installment to the Axiom trilogy. Unlike book two, this one jumps right into the action, not spending a lot of time recapping what came before. I would also like to praise that this trilogy also has a satisfying ending, even if it depends on some aspect of deus ex machina going for it (and I can somewhat forgive it for the ease with in which the crew of White Raven achieves everything they set out to do).

As I’ve said before, this series is clearly a cousin to The Expanse books, but instead of being a cheap knock-off, author Tim Pratt has some fun with the space opera format, most notably by adding more humor and less politics. And like the James S.A. Corey’s series, it is set in a very diverse universe, so those who’ve been critical of The Expanse for both its politics and diverseness, will be somewhat disappointed. But for those who like that series, I believe you can find something to like in this series.

This trilogy also reminded me of the trilogies I read in the 1980s, with tales that took three books to tell and where generally less than 450 pages long. I miss this in publishing, in many ways, especially for this genre. I’ve grown weary of series that span five, six, seven or more books, each at 800 to 1,000 pages; its overkill and unnecessary.