The penultimate volume! So, as you can imagine, things do not go well for the time-and-space displaced Cleopatra (a/k/a Queen of the Nile) despite all her running around and shooting things. Another solid chapter for a middle-school series that is fun and high energy. Bring on the conclusion! ( )

In the Nile Galaxy, a battle may be brewing even though everyone thinks their sworn enemy recently died. Even so, they are still preparing a defensive technological shield ... and young Cleo is experiencing a glow around her that makes her suspect danger is near.

This is book five in a series and I very quickly learned that this is NOT the kind of series where you can pick up any book at random. It opens up with a series of flashbacks meant to help explain why the main villain began so evil. As origin stories go, it's kind of flimsy and unconvincing.

The book then picks up with the cadet school where Cleo and her friends are training to be ... something? I'm not really sure what; it seems like perhaps becoming part of an elite military group is the end goal. The school is apparently important enough that the galaxy's pharaoh and ruling council are on site or near at hand. (It was not exactly clear to me which exactly.)

As the book itself predicts, all is not well for long and the action ramps increasingly up to a big battle between Cleo and the non-dead villain. Who will prevail? Apparently you'll have to read the next (and final) book in the series to find out.

So, it's hard to me really judge this book well because it's obvious now I should have read the preceding four books before this one. I'm giving the author a lot of benefit of the doubt as a result. There were definitely times when I felt like I was missing some vital piece of information, and there were also moments that felt like they would probably have had a more emotional impact with those who were familiar with the series as a whole (or more specifically, had more of an investment with the characters).

Still, it seems like the type of story that a lot of kids would like, with something for everyone: lots of adventure and action with the spy plotline and the fight scenes, a bit of sci-fi with the time travel aspect and interesting gadgets, the tiniest hint of romance between two characters, plenty of friendship goals, a touch of family drama, and even some magic with the talking animals. Oh, did I mention that the ruling council is made up entirely of talking cats?

I had a few concerns/quibbles:
- Not an expert, but I worry this might be considered cultural appropriation for a white author to be using historical characters / iconography from Egypt...
- It's a throwaway line, but at one point Cleo mentions skipping out of a class because she hates math. The target audience for this book (ages 8-12) is right around the age when girls go from thinking they are good at math and science to thinking they are bad at those subjects ... in part because of the ways society overtly and subtlety tell girls and women that they aren't fit for those subjects.
- There's two times on the same page when the hand-lettering sound effect for a door opening is misspelled as "creek" instead of "creak." It's an easy enough mistake, but it did make me chuckle.

The illustrations are quite good; they are incredibly expressive and very eye-catching. I love how the purple permeates so much of the palette when they are in outer space. (The few flashbacks to ancient Egypt are much brighter, imitating the sunny skies.) The cats are also an adorable addition, even when they are playing serious roles. ( )

This is the fifth book in the Cleopatra in Space graphic novel series, there are six books planned for this series. This was a very well done installment in this graphic novel series.

The novel starts with a quick background on Gozu (who becomes Octavian). This was a bit confusing at first but in the end I figured out what was happening here. After that Cleo and friends must sort out treachery within the school and save what they can before everything is destroyed.

I love the illustration style and high energy story. There is always some humor in here which is great fun!

There are a lot of characters in this series at this point and I had a bit of trouble keeping some of the cats straight. It would have been great to have a “Story so far” or maybe a small section with character faces and names at the beginning. However, these are pretty short reads so I could have just gone back and re-read them all.

Overall this was a very entertaining continuation of the Cleopatra in Space series. Things are really coming to a climax here and we learn a ton about Gozu and Cleo’s background. I would recommend this whole series to those readers middle grade and older who enjoy action packed sci-fi graphic novels with some humor. I can’t wait to see how the series wraps up in book 6! ( )