3.5 Stars
The 'Machineries of Empire' trilogy is neatly concluded in this volume. There have been maybe 9 years of chaos after the upending of the not much lamented Hexarchate by the combined actions of Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao in 'Ninefox Gambit'. The opposing sides are dubbed the Compact and the Protectorate, and the eminence grise revealed as the puppetmaster Nirai Kujen, he who still claims to be Hexarch, and who it seems, still hold all the aces, is mixed up in all of the machinations aiming for control and re-establishment of the ancien regime.
Ranged against him are the rats in the walls, the wheels and cogs of empire who just cannot be seen by those at the peak of power. The toppling of Kujen depends on the unlikliest of allies, and a fair helping of luck.
Probably the most readily accessible of the trilogy (though my brain was no doubt immune to calendrical rot by the time I completed the book)
The 'Machineries of Empire' trilogy is neatly concluded in this volume. There have been maybe 9 years of chaos after the upending of the not much lamented Hexarchate by the combined actions of Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao in 'Ninefox Gambit'. The opposing sides are dubbed the Compact and the Protectorate, and the eminence grise revealed as the puppetmaster Nirai Kujen, he who still claims to be Hexarch, and who it seems, still hold all the aces, is mixed up in all of the machinations aiming for control and re-establishment of the ancien regime.
Ranged against him are the rats in the walls, the wheels and cogs of empire who just cannot be seen by those at the peak of power. The toppling of Kujen depends on the unlikliest of allies, and a fair helping of luck.
Probably the most readily accessible of the trilogy (though my brain was no doubt immune to calendrical rot by the time I completed the book)