The Last Emperox

Ouch, Scalzi! Epic, but somewhat painful ending to a finely wrought trilogy. You win on all the feels fronts; I laughed, I cheered, I sighed in frustrate despair and I really, really cried. I get the choices made, and there's no way the ending would have had the impact it did without them. I can't even say it doesn't have a fairly happy ending, because in a lot of ways, it ended the best way it could. Cardenia making the choice, being imbued with that power in her new state and what she could do as a result...I'm not a fan of martyr narratives, but you go into this trilogy knowing that things are going very bad, and inso far as an empire and this particular guild/monopoly/nobility means a massive power imbalance, and then everything you learn about the Rupture, things have been bad for centuries. Cardenia was strong enough to do the what she could to change things for the better for the future. I'm so glad she had the time with Marce, which of course makes the ending hurt more! 😭 On a more gleefuly badassl note; Kiva Lagos' arc in direct contradiction to Nadashe Nohemapetan's is glorious: "Bitch, you're in my spot" 😆 And the fact that she has Senia means one love story remains less tragic, for which I am grateful. Stellar character work as always, the reveal about Rachela, and the snippets of Tomas Chenevert's redemption arc just add more awesome. Scalzi remains one of my favourite authors, and I'm happy he's still got backlist (and hopefully more front list in future!) for me to investigate.