Book three, and the saga continues. Years have now passed since the Alien Hydrogues made their presence felt following the unintentional destruction of one of their gas giant homeworlds with the ancient Klikiss Torch. Years in which the supply of Ekti (the starship fuel mined from gas giants) has all but dried up and remaining stocks have been dramatically reduced.

The human Hanseatic League is suffering particularly, not having had the foreknowledge of such an event that the Ildiran Empire had. Adding their despair is their total lack of success when battling any Hydrogue ships.

The Worldforest and the human colony on the Worldforest's world, Theroc, lie in ruins, having suffered greatly from a Hydrogue attack, the Roamer clans have been declared outlaws by the Hanseatic Chairman and find themselves attacked by the far superior force of the EDF Navy. These two independent branches of humanity now find themselves allies, with the Roamers aiding in the rescuing and rebuilding of both the forest and the colony.

Entering into this are the Faeros, the fiery ancient enemy of the Hydrogues, their battles leaving mankind an insignificant bystander.

With Roamer Jess Tamblyn having dedicated himself to restoring another enemy of the Hydrogues, the water based entities the Wentals, to their former position of strength, and the most brilliant Roamer scientist having a Hydrogue ship to investigate for weaknesses, mankind may well be about to fight back. And it's all due to the efforts of the recently outlawed Roamer clans.

I'm hooked on this series. I found myself torn when I picked this book up. Equally, I wanted to find out how this epic ends whilst not wanting there to be no further books to come in the series.

Well what I got was a book three, but not a book to end the series. And out of the two options this was the preferred. This is set on a truly grand scale, action takes place all over the galaxy, in space and planetside on many different worlds. But unlike other similarly genred titles this has a definite sense of grounding, the action may be big but all the perspectives are personal - tracking the characters as they play their parts in these colossal events, and connecting the reader in a far more personal way than descriptions of great spaceship battles could. Yes these battles exist but the action we get is always one person at his or her station aboard one ship - rather than great panaromas of action.

Anderson's writing style is compelling, he is one of those authors you simply need to read, and I cannot recommend this series highly enough to anyone who enjoys space opera.

Now bring on book four, and I think I am now hoping book four is not the end either.