Quick-take: Needs more Thrawn.

Dan's Review

Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuru is headed back out to claim more glory for the Chiss and Mitth family. A secondary story, or possibly primary based on how much time is dedicated to it, is about Haplif of the Agbui. He manipulates other Chiss to further his and his masters goals.

The other characters make appearances: Admiral Ar'alani and Caregiver Thalias.

The plot managed to combine all the side stories into one for the finale. That was pleasant to see, but I would argue the finale was not very epic. It was mostly just... interesting.

Score 4/5. Despite the problems, I am giving a rare higher score on book 2 than on book 1. Since all the groundwork was laid on book 1, it was able to focus more on the story in book 2. Also, I really appreciate the revisit to each side plot at the end of book 1. There were some pieces I had forgotten about, and the author gave me a status update and a bit of foreshadow on what will be the full wrap up in book 3.

I have book 3 ready to go. I hope this actually is only a trilogy. Despite that somewhat weak book 1 entry, I stuck with it because I thought the series was complete.