Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Artificial Nature is making its play to shut down Virga's protections and bring its people into its consciousness-focused culture. But another living, non-conscious culture is offering an alliance of its own. The heroes of the Virga series find themselves on both sides, each fighting in their own way for what they think is best.

Review
The Virga series started very strong, but gradually declined, though it always remained worth reading. I hoped that it would finish strong, on a bit of an upswing. Instead, it plateaus. I'm still a fan of the series overall, but there's not quite the climax I thought we might get.

In fact, the final battle of the book and series are, if not anti-climactic, at least flat. They're confused, with many factions and actors, and perhaps one could argue for verisimilitude and fog of war. But as a reader, it's hard to follow, and I found I just didn't care much about the details.

The strengths of this book have been its worldbuilding (and in this book there's not much that's new) and its characters. Schroeder does his level best in this final book to keep all his key characters in play and to give everyone a resolution. He mostly succeeds, but his effort to do so is visible, and ends up meaning that no one is really the focus in the ensemble cast closing.

Schroeder does less well with his villain. Where Venera Fanning was a sociopath not very credibly sold as charming (and deeply in love with her husband), Inshiri Ferance is essentially her analog, just on the other side. There's a thin attempt at motivation for her cruelty, but I didn't find her very believable. On the other hand, even the ‘good guy's finally win in part through cruelty and exploitation. I don't believe Schroeder meant to show moral ambiguity; he just didn't see the cruelty for what it was.

Altogether, I give Schroeder credit for trying to neatly wrap a multi-dimensional, complex story. He does that fairly well, but the path to get there is more muddled than it needed to be. The book generally works, but it's the series resolution that it's really offering.

For the series as a whole, I'm still a big fan. It's innovative, intriguing, and peopled with engaging characters on big adventures, encountering big concepts. And I think it would be feasible to read just one or two books and be satisfied so it's easy to take on. I recommend it.