I received an eARC of the book through BookSirens in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinions.
Genre: Sci-fi Age Range: Adult Star Rating: 4 stars Series: final book of trilogy
*SPOILER ALERT: contains SPOILERS for THOSE LEFT BEHIND and THOSE ONCE FORGOTTEN*
Blurb:
We are all Idran-Var. We are those who resist.
A dark shadow has fallen across the galaxy. The curators—a hive mind made from the memories of countless past civilisations—have finally returned, ready to finish the experiment they started millions of years ago.
A splintered resistance with a desperate plan is all that stands in the way of utter annihilation. As Alvera Renata and her old crew join forces with former enemies and unlikely allies, all eyes turn to the Omega Gate—a twisted contraption formed of the mysterious waystations. Destroying it might give them a fighting chance against the curators—if they don’t destroy each other first.
To have any hope of succeeding, Alvera and her new alliance will have to overcome old wounds and fresh losses to gather the forces of the galaxy for a final stand. But even in the face of extinction, every disparate faction still has their own agenda, and bringing them together might be more trouble than it’s worth.
As star systems fall and the curators close in, trust hangs by a single thread. Only one truth binds them together now: if they don’t stand united, the galaxy will be lost to all of them.
Blurb taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
THOSE WHO RESIST is an action packed series finale to this epic space opera, following the cast as they make their final, desperate stance against the alien hive mind intent on wiping them out in order to reset the galaxy in search of the pinnacle of evolution.
This is a book full of frantic, hopeless battles. Having made bids to secure allies, and come up against a lot of resistance, I think the final battles started at about the 48% mark – it is a very action packed book! But among the big action sequences, space fights, and ground battles, there is still a deeply human core.
The cost of the war is measured in the hundreds of thousands, and the characters not only have to come to terms with that, but they have to make the choices about who to save, how to buy time, and which fight they need to be in. Each choice really forced the characters to confront who they were and make decisions that show how much they have and haven’t changed.
It makes for a very satisfying ending, as the characters are being reduced to their core by horrible decisions. Plus there’s a lot of pay off in terms of where the characters end up and what the future looks like at the end. They all get a closure that fits where they’ve been growing towards over the book.
While this is the end of the trilogy, there is a sense that it is not the end of the characters’ stories, that they will have further adventures. The galaxy is big enough for that, and there is a whole new version of life for them to explore now in the aftermath. I doubt we’ll get those stories, but I like it when there’s a sense that the characters can live beyond the pages.
Read my reviews of other books by N. C. Scrimgeour:
Waystations (this series):
- THE EXODUS BETRAYAL (#0)
- THOSE LEFT BEHIND (#1)
- THOSE ONCE FORGOTTEN (#2)
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 