The Forbidden Stars

The Forbidden Stars is third in Tim Pratt's Axiom series, which began with The Wrong Stars back in 2017. If you're interested in the series of a whole and only want one book worth of spoilers, you may be interested in my review of the second book, The Dreaming Stars, which also includes a summary of what to expect from the first book if you add it to your TBR. In that review, I expressed a wish for the Axiom to be one of those neverending speculative series, where everything feels like a pivotal TV episode with its own satisfying wrap-ups as well as a contribution to a wider, slow moving plot arc. Alas, The Forbidden Stars confirms that the White Raven's adventures are ending at the trilogy point, and this is therefore the climax of their story.

All the core characters from the book 1 are back: Captain Callie Machado and her ancient (in the sense of cryogenic freezing, anyway) girlfriend Elena; Ashok the amiable if slightly emotionally unintelligent cyborg; Drake and Janice, survivors of what should have been a fatal crash and a subsequent phsyical rebuild by aliens without a proper blueprint for what humans should look like; and Shall, the ship's AI. Also on the mission is Lantern, member of the alien race called the Liars which originally gifted humanity the stars in a limited form, in order to prevent them from stumbling across the secrets of the Axiom. As it transpires, the galaxy that humans have come of age in is a galaxy that's controlled by a genocidal, warlike species convinced of its own superiority - that's the Axiom themselves - and while most members of the species are now in hibernation or otherwise out of action while they wait for some of their pet projects to come to fruition, they're not going to be happy that their place has become infested with another (vaguely) successful spacefaring species while they've been away. Though its fun to get back to the core cast, I missed some of the previous characters, and there's not really anyone new to love - the new robot pal Kaustikos, sent to join the crew by their mysterious Benefactor, has some fun moments but is mostly engaged in unsympathetic whining, and there's not a lot of time for any of the in-system characters to really shine.