I wish this book was a better ending to a series I love. Unfortunately, I felt the dialogue was odd and stripped away a good deal of the interesting characterization of Breq, Sieverdan, Tsirawet, and Mercy of Kalr. Leckie isn’t as deft at handling characters confronting their emotions rather than avoiding them, and it especially shows when they openly discuss their relationships. Not to mention, the focus on neatly wrapping up a lot of big picture plotlines leaves this story without a lot of time to develop the complexity and nuances I love in the first two books. The new characters these plotlines introduce take a lot of pages away from the relationships, characters, and themes that the first two books spend so much time establishing. I’d have much preferred some open-ended lingering questions about the Ghost Gate and the Presger, but the book seems more concerned with tying up loose ends than telling an impactful story. I’m still excited to read Leckie’s other books, and hope they can capture the magic of Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword.

I don't have much to say about this book - I enjoyed it a lot and it was very good but despite having a fairly high stakes climax it felt a little anti-climactic for the end of the trilogy. I think this book was very good but not quite as good as the first two (mainly because of the ending). Everything is tidy-ish but it leaves a lot of questions as to what will happen next, which I understand some people like but I find a little unsatisfying. Ending aside though, this book was great. It was interesting to see Breq have some character development when throughout the series she has been a fairly static figure that has caused change in others.