Books The Ashes of Worlds (Saga of Seven Suns)
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - No loose ends or endless number of volumes here: Anderson delivers a pleasing close to the Saga
"The Ashes of Worlds" offers a big, satisfying finish to a seven-book series that, at worst, was always perfectly entertaining, and at best was often much more than that. My personal favorite plotline throughout the series was the constant power struggle between Chairman Wenceslas and King Peter over who would hold the reins of the human government, and that was one of many plotlines entertainingly resolved here.

In a style that reminded me of the close to the film "Return of the Jedi", the last quarter of the book nicely jumped between several different battles and confrontations, with all the separate strands finally pulling together to contribute to the big finish. There are also a few quiet, graceful final chapters that nicely show us the aftermath of that big finish, and what many of the characters will now be doing with their lives (something "Return of the Jedi" could have used).

Was seven books a little long for Kevin Anderson's space opera? Maybe. But in a world where there's ten (so far) "Wheel of Time" books with no scheduled resolution (a situation further hampered by the recent passing of the books' author, Robert Jordan) and an ever-growing (but still very good, admittedly) "Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy series by George R. R. Martin, it was refreshing to read a series that announced it was going to be seven books, delivered seven books (doing so fairly regularly one after the other), and- most importantly- provided a complete, satisfying story.

If you enjoyed Kevin Anderson's "Saga of Seven Suns" series, you might also like the single-volume epic, "The Last Days of Krypton", which is Mr. Anderson's imaginative take on the events leading up to the destruction of the planet Krypton and the launch of the infant Kal-El to Earth, where he'd eventually grow up to be Superman. Incidentally, I read both "The Last Days of Krypton" and "The Ashes of Worlds" on my Amazon Kindle reading device, and both read beautifully on the Kindle's eye-pleasing screen.

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Rating: - Too many "look behind you!" moments
I love this series. It has great characters and story. However, in this last episode, there are too many unbelievable events. Many of the characters do stupids things - making you want to shout "Look behind you!" like in a pantomime. When someone could be killed by visiting Earth why do they keep going there? Why don't the Roamers and Confederation protect themselves enough from the HANSA? And so on... After a while it got so tiring that I skipped to the end to see what happened - I almost never do this with books.

Another annoying story trait was that s**t always seems to be happening to the point where you keep asking "what now... groan". At some point the bad people have to get there just rewards and something good needs to happen to the nice people - but it takes so damn long.

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Rating: - Great Final Chapter
'The Ashes of Worlds' is a great final chapter in the Seven Suns saga and a wonderful book by Kevin Anderson. With a 'final' book in a saga you want to have your whistle wet and be happy with a finale and this book delivers.

**** RECOMMENDED

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Rating: - Well worth it!
The whole series is great. I was taken in from the first book to the last. I found the books very hard to put down once I started reading them. The characters, plots and sub-plots and just the whole ball of wax. The is a must read for anyone who is looking for something on the same level as Dune. Kevin Anderson's writting is brilliant.