Been a while since I've read Sci-fi and had a binge over Christmas that carried into the new year.
Book 1 4.5*
Book 2 4*
Book 3 3.5*
Overall:- 4*
Interesting series and different compared to Old Man's War. Very enjoyable, well paced in terms of readability and threw in a fair few curve balls and shuttles. Kiva was the stand out character for me, with Grayland an enigmatic second. Plenty of scope to add to the story and with a couple of side characters something of a shame that didn't happen.
Book one was the stand out, in setting the scene and throwing all the primary characters in at the deep end at differing tiers of the mid to high social scale. Greylock and Marce both had entertaining development paths with how the situation panned out.
Book Two developed the internecine squabbling further, with Greylock and Kiva the more interesting character path for me. The new dimension also also worked well against the looming disaster backdrop and it was interesting who and what would go boom first. That backdrop/side plot could have been developed more/interesting to see where Book 3 would take it. Very solid middle book/filler.
Book Three was enjoyable in pulling the threads together, then it ended. It felt abrupt, really abrupt, then stopped. That killed a star and nearly two. I can see why the story evolved that way, but it felt either contrived, or edited down to a flaky crust at the bottom of the pan. It seemed as though it is there to kickstart other projects/series, but the conclusion felt like a quarter of the book was missing. It rocked for one character, didn't for another and a let down for the third. While it was a cool play on the title, it should have have finished off that storyline, before dropping the end twist in. Style - great. Storyline too shallow and came up short.
Well worth the read.