This was a disappointing end to the trilogy. It feels rushed as the hero literally runs from one end of the Earth to the other and back, typos and mangled phrases included. A back history of 400 years is infodumped by people who play no further part in the action, yet all the reference to history we get is the usual 20th century stuff, including nationalist clichés. We are treated to a lecture on how to conduct a real space war – the weapons engineer even gets to play an excerpt that reads like Star Wars (Harrison really must have been pissed off with the travesty of space popluarized by movies). Hardest to swallow is the emergence of a James Bond-style, omnipotent, omniscient supervillain. And all this in 200 pages! For once, more would have been better, there is simply not enough time to treat interesting aspects of the story in satisfactory depth. ( )

Not as good as the first two, the politics was a bit screwy. But still a wonderful trilogy ( )

Trevlig avslutning på en skön trilogi med retro-sf av Harry Harrison. Här återfinns också en homage till Sveriges störste sf-utgivare och -författare, Sam J. Lundwall (i revolutionens sista timmar leder en kapten Lundwall ena halvan av flottstyrkan ombord på skeppet "Sverige"). ( )