An excellent trilogy with a lot of characters some of which I don't think were necessarily fully realised and utilized. Was surprised that the hard science didn't put me off and instead enhanced the telling of the story. Was the resolution satisfactory? Yes. Did the ending seem a little rushed? Yes. But it was fun. Recommended.

I loved the Commonwealth saga, and had high hopes for The Void trilogy. But so much of this second series feels like a wink and a nudge to what came before it. The gang got back together to face insurmountable odds and save the day... like last time. Plot: It felt like Hamilton just made everything one step 'more'. Humanity was at threat last time? Well now the whole universe is! You thought FTL was fast? Check out this Ultra Drive! Exploding a star is child's play, we do that for fun now. The creation of new technologies that can defeat the previous technology, got a little tiring. But it wasn't all bad. Hamilton did a great job at wrangling all of his characters, and intersecting their plotlines in a way that was coherent. Characters: This is the weakest part for me. The characters just don't feel distinct enough from each other. There's 'gruff, straight talking, all action man' and 'strong willed, coy, sexually liberated woman'. These are fine characters, but when they're all of the characters, it feels grating. The 'bad guys' are also hilariously one note. Ending: The ending felt overly saccharine and neat. Everyone lives happily ever after, the baddies are thwarted, and some wishes were granted. Like c'mon! Give me at least ONE bittersweet ending. Overall I liked it, but at the end I kept going only because I wanted to see it through. I'm a sucker for wild out there stories, so this gets a 3/5, there were a lot of fun ideas that kept me thinking (like one person having multiple bodies at the same time). But fun ideas only go so far. (PS. Also I didn't like that a woman who performed abortions on herself was portrayed as wrong for doing so. This is a minor gripe, but it felt weird.)