Review: Abendau’s Legacy, by Jo Zebedee

I received a free copy of this in return for an honest review.

Abendau’s Legacy is the final part of dark sci-fi series The Inheritance Trilogy. Warning: there are, necessarily, spoilers for the events of Abendau’s Heir and Sunset Over Abendau below.

Abendau’s Legacy takes place very shortly after the end of Sunset Over Abendau. The Empress has reclaimed about half her empire, the other half loosely coalescing around the idea of a republic. Kare, her son, is forced to confront not only his fear of her but also try to keep his wayward son in line and the rest of his family safe.

There’s an interesting approach of having a relatively small cast but many POV characters, and the author does well to capture the differing perspectives (most of the time you’d know whose viewpoint you were seeing through even if unaware of their name).

The heart of the book is the strength of the characters and their sometimes fractious relationships with one another. It’s very emotive (sort of Hobb meets Abercrombie in space).

Generally, the plot works well. There are some little twists that are credible but also surprising (a tightrope to be walked with twists), although one late [minor] twist felt a little jarring/unnecessary. Weaving together the various plot threads was very well-balanced, particularly late on.

The story’s tightly focused on the characters, smaller in scale and more intimate than sci-fi can sometimes be. It’s more about people than the action (although there’s no shortage of that).

Here and there the turns of the plot were predictable, which, at those times, did reduce dramatic tension.

Obviously, this is the third book of a trilogy. To my mind, it’s at least as good as the previous book (Sunset Over Abendau) and if you’ve bought the first two you need have no qualms about buying this one.

Thaddeus

PS Note on review policy, submissions etc: I very rarely review fiction any more. If I’ve reviewed something of yours in the past and have nothing on, I might be interested. However, right now I’ve got five books to read (and my own to promote), so the window is definitely closed until 2017 at the earliest. How this changes going forward depends on things that are strange and mysterious.