The Evolutionary Void

Review

★★★★☆

The final book in Hamilton’s Void Trilogy, The Evolutionary Void, wraps up the series well, but a little too quickly. All the characters and storylines arrive where they’re needed and then the story is over.

At the end of The Temporal Void, Edeard learns that he can rewind his world to a point of his choosing to get a second (or third, or forth, …) chance to do things right. In The Evolutionary Void, Edeard uses this power to try to make his world perfect.

Edeard brings peace to his city, for a time. Soon he runs into other psychics with powers even greater than his own. Edeard is forced to take more and more drastic measures, including stopping one of them from being born, and his actions weigh heavily on him. This burden alienates him from his friends and family, and leads to him become the same despot he overthrew earlier. These chapters are tough to read because, after two books, I had grown attached to Edeard, the hero who never faltered.

Of course, true to his role as the perfect hero, Edeard realizes his mistakes and undoes them, living a final, flawless life.

Outside the void is a little more chaotic, but the various storylines start to weave together until, suddenly, they are all in the right places and save the universe. I did not predict the ending this time, unlike for Judas Unchained, but in a way that is why it felt abrupt: it was foreshadowed but more subtlety. Still, there are some satisfying moments, like when Qutax gets revenge against The Cat¹, and when all the mysteries of Edeard’s city are revealed.

All and all, the series does not quite meet the expectations set by The Dreaming Void, but is still good fun.

With a “Reverse Adama Maneuver”, raising the High Angel out of a gas giant’s atmosphere to ambush The Cat’s ship. ↩