Information on the invading aliens is found inside the portal, while two intelligence agencies seek answers to the setup which led to the human war.

While the story continues from where it left off in Starshine, it has a very different feel. The huge set of characters who barely got any screen-time in the first book get lots of action here- more, in fact than Alex and Caleb. All of the stories are well told, the characters believable, and the action exciting. Alex and Caleb spent more time apart, and Alex’s was by far the more interesting one, even though we got to see just how capable Caleb is. I was hoping, though, for more to the aliens than just “stay out of our territory”. I thought they could have been given a less obvious motivation, though that might be yet to come. I was also very much invested in Richard and Graham, opposing intelligence officers working together to figure out why the setup for this war looked so suspicious. It was a fun ride. The technology once again gets prime focus, from the Artificials, which I think will get a bigger role in the next book, to Kennedy’s gadget to combat the comms blackout, even to the absence of it when Caleb goes after the dragons. The author makes the tech believable without going overboard on the jargon. Even when describing a person who only appears once, maybe about to die, the author does a great job at making them interesting and unique, along with their planet. All in all, a great second book to follow up the great first one.

And with that, the war with Seneca is over. For the second book in a trilogy, I was surprised. Presumably, the war with the aliens will take up the final book, along with the rogue general. The rogue general, by the way, didn’t seem necessary to the plot, maybe just filler for a third book that didn’t quite have enough material? We’ll see.

The book picks up in the same moment Starshine ended. Alex and Caleb go through the portal into a nexus where they are attacked by the alien swarmer ships. Evading these, then end up on a planet hidden away from the aliens –a planet that looks identical to Earth, but with no cities, and no people. Almost immediately, Alex is stolen by a dragon, and put through a series of memories showing her bad judgement, the interaction between her mother and deceased father, the big event that caused restrictions of Artificials (it followed its instructions to the letter, causing sick students to suffocate under a protective dome, because there was no ideal solution), and finally, the sacrifice her father made to save a bunch of scientists in the last war. The aliens have been watching humanity for a long time!

Alex is emotionally exhausted by the end of this, and it’s very interestingly written. Each scene points to something we know about Alex, but is interpreted through her arrogant and accusatory attitude to her mother, who couldn’t be a mother to her after her father died.

Caleb, on the other hand, has to figure out the planet, which seems to be divided into zones, one of which bounces his spaceship (actually Alex’s spaceship) hundreds of kilometers backwards. He has to abandon all technology, and even turns off his augments to pass through it. I loved his experimental attitude in finding what would pass and what would get bounced. His reliance on augments is showcased here where he can’t use them. He collects powerful explosives, which litter the ground like mines, and fights a dragon to the death to get to Alex. This is a little more believable than his love-puppy attitude the last time she was near death.

The aliens let Alex go when Caleb arrives, and they get down off the mountain before they start making out, almost a love scene, but not quite, as they abort when Alex sees how hurt Caleb is. They walk through a forest that tries to navigate them away, to find an angelic alien, whose name they shorten to Mesme. I looked back in The Stars Like Gods, and sure enough, he’s there, and when Nika meets Alex, she glances in amusement at the idea of being tied in the jump seat, something she did to Caleb in the last book. Mesme was just as mysterious there as he is here, unable to give a straight answer. Fortunately, he gives enough hints that Alex figures out the key to defeating the alien fleet, which is being coordinated by another sect of the same species.

Alex steals the code to the cloaking device hiding the planet, and installs it on the Siyane, where she uses it to great effect evading the alien ships after they leave. They pass through several portals to other universes, and return to the lobby when hunted. Finally, they blow up the ship manufacturing plant, so that the aliens can’t send more ships through to annihilate humanity. I have a bit of trouble believing this –if they can build a super dreadnought in under an hour, surely they can build a manufacturing center in a few days?

Invisible and traveling at super-high speed, they traverse the portal back into their universe, where they learn about the investigations and the end of the war.

If that sounds like a lot of Alex and Caleb, it is, but that still pales in comparison with the other characters who feature. In Starshine, we are introduced to many people, some of whom have a part in instigating the war, others who do not. They got so little page time that they were mostly forgettable. Interesting, but forgettable because they were rarely revisited. In this book, each one (those who survived) gets a major plot arc. It’s an interesting way to create a trilogy, as seemingly minor characters from the first book get major parts in the second one.

Richard, of course, featured more prominently with Alex’s mother Miriam. He leads the investigation into Alex’s allegations that the war is a setup. He works closely with a genius programmer to clear Alex and Caleb from the bombing, also digging up more material on who was in fact responsible. He works great with Graham, Senecan intelligence chief who knew Caleb’s father. Graham initially brings Caleb’s sister in for questioning, and tells her how her father died –not by abandoning his family as he pretended to, but to save them from harm by a criminal gang he tried to arrest. This will tie in to a minor plot in the last book.

Meanwhile, Richard’s husband Wil is also an undercover Senecan agent, and brings the two together at the risk of their marriage. Richard and Graham find Noah, who refused to transport explosives to Vancouver, then to Olivia, head of the most prominent gang, who leads them to the man who made his way to Prime Minister of the Earth Alliance through murder and seeming accidents, one of which also killed Alex’s former lover, a famous singer.

The plot revealed, they go to arrest those they know are involved, only to have O’Connell slip through their fingers, and the Prime Minister kill himself, revealing everything. O’Connell’s theft of the cruisers seemed unlikely, but maybe realistic given the bureaucracy –nobody thought he would ever go this far, so they didn’t order his arrest. The plot doesn’t seem to belong in this book, and I hope it doesn’t become filler for the next one. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, reveals that the alien Hyperion was in contact with him, and he started the war to bring Seneca under the Earth Alliance, so he could move human colonies westward, out of the range the aliens dictated. Only he wasn’t fast enough. An interesting twist, that he was killing all these people to save the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, the alien timetable didn’t allow for the fruition of his plan, and they still plan to annihilate humanity. Interestingly, Hyperion contacts them after Alex and Caleb destroy the shipyards, offering humanity a chance to avoid that fate, if they stay beyond a certain line through the galaxy. Knowing that they can’t dictate every human for the rest of eternity, both Earth Alliance and Seneca refuse, especially after Miriam gets word of what Alex has done.

The author writes good military battles, mostly from the point of view of another of Alex’s former lovers, Malcolm. He now commands a starship, and coordinates some victories. He manages to rescue the prime minister of a former Alliance planet now under Senecan control in a dramatic and exciting infiltration. The space fights were impressive, from the Senecan ambushes to the massive alien ships that we learn can be fooled by human ingenuity, though humans lose far too many ships to destroy a single super-dreadnaught.

Artificials, whom I expect precede the flight to another galaxy by Nika that we see in flashback in The Stars Like Gods, feature just enough that we get to see them in action. Devon, who works with the Artificial Annie in the Earth Alliance, is the one who helped Richard find the clues to the war instigators. Morgan is a super pilot in the Senecan Federation, who uses the artificial Stan to detect patterns in the alien fleet. Then there’s Mia, who used her own artificial to break into Alex’s spaceship last book. Mia strives to help her planet Romane, offering advice to the governor, and getting to be put in charge of brainstorming solutions for her efforts. She surprises herself by being good at it. From her point of view, we see a little of the alien methods used on other planets.

Finally, we have Kennedy, Alex’s best friend. On Messium to secure a trade deal for her family company, Kennedy is fortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time. The aliens attack, and Kennedy is trapped under some rubble, but is rescued by Noah. They make their way to the basement of a tech company, where they ride out the bombardment. Being the techie she is, and finding out that Noah is also a techie, they work together to analyze the signal the aliens are using to jam all human comms, and devise a counter-measure, which they beam out to the Alliance, hoping it can be used to rescue them. On the way to the military base, Kennedy and Noah pick up some survivors, some of whom die while being hunted by the alien machines. They launch in a shuttle, which is picked up by Malcolm, and brought to Earth.

The book again ends on a cliff-hanger, but it’s a different kind. Instead of war with the Federation, the tide is turning, and humanity looks like they might have a chance.