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Is this a fun ride with lots of satisfaction, a good story and a quick pace. Definitely. Is this a good book? No, not really. Scalzi is an amazing storyteller, but not a particularly good writer. (Having said that, he is far better than he used to be, and he's even commented on problems with his writing that he has tried to correct.) I started this as a light vacation read and it performed exactly as expected.

his book starts off strong, but doesn't maintain momentum through to the end.

I enjoyed so much of this book. The prose was beautiful in parts and genuinely stirring. But I expected it was building to a stronger ending than what it ultimately delivered.

I see this as a very vivid portrait of Suzuki's mindset at the time she wrote it. The stories read as a tragedy, especially when you know the ending of the author's personal story, but there was nothing I found compelling. The pedestrian stories make blatant and unsuccessful attempts to sound interesting while ultimately going nowhere. It felt as if the author tried to include things that she knew make critics and scholars swoon. Unfortunately, the heavy-handedness with which they were forced into the narrative makes them fall flat, and they are ultimately lacking the very things she was trying to achieve.

Once again Derek Knüsken serves up a caper with a good dose of theoretical physics and n-dimensional geometry. Don't worry if you're not into all that, there's still enough action and intrigue to keep you interested. I had been under the impression this was the conclusion to The Quantum Evolution series, but not everything is all wrapped up, so there may be more.

After a long wait for the final Terra Ignota volume, Perhaps The Stars does not disappoint. Yes, there are parts that on and on, but they work if you've bought in to the previous books. There is even in-story justification for this that was started in The Will to Battle.

The dense prose we've come to expect continues here, and I feel I need to complete a reread before I can write much more of a review.

In short, if you liked the previous novels then this is an extremely satisfying conclusion. Those who found the prior works to be more of a struggle won't have any relief here.