4.5 stars. I felt like things were resolved and not resolved at all. ( )

Believe it or not, this book was a pretty solid 3 star rating that slipped a bit to 2 stars for a few stretches in the "so this is the alien we've surrendered to" dialogues.

Descriptions of the mysterious Planet X, the bombardments of planets over millions of years, the evolving history of the Gurus, the Antags, and the whole nature of the entire mess was slightly better.

In some ways, this book and the others that preceded it would have been better served as a straight discussion of war-profiteering, war-as-entertainment for the elite, and an all-around mind-fuq for all the lousy saps getting caught in the circus.

Who knows? Maybe it still can. But for most of the book, we're involved in a not-so-surprising mystery that unfolds.

The GURUS ARE EVIL???

Ahem. And the rest of us, Antags included, are dupes? That we're all just pit dogs fighting it out for the amusement of arseholes?

Well, fortunately, the last half of the novel was pretty cool and I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than the first half and a long stretch of the second novel.

This was something of a hit-or-miss novel. I include that as a whole hit-or-miss series. It's likely Bear's worst works. Some good parts were here, mind you, and the battles and a few of the wilder ideas were pretty awesome, but I was NOT that invested.

I miss Queen of Angels, Moving Mars, Blood Music, or even his original fantasy titles! I miss Darwin's Radio!

Well. We can't always get what we want. Still, I'm glad I finally got to see what these latest novels were all about. ( )

This was just okay. I think there more interesting surprises in the others in the series. This has some interesting bits, and it wraps up okay, but it felt like it took too long getting there. ( )

Greg Bear's more recent novels have disappointed me. This one is no exception. It is the 3rd book in his War Dogs trilogy. The plot is very thin. At times, Bear's descriptive writing makes me think he was smoking marijuana while writing this. I liked his earlier novels much better. He really needs to get away from this kind of space war theme. I can't recommend this book. ( )