Review: Satisfying Conclusion to Good Trilogy
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2014
This trilogy has been heading for a climactic battle between humanity and the amphibious aliens, and it is delivered in "The Trafalgar Gambit".  The title points to a certain outcome, but that needn't spoil things for the reader.  There are other series out there that handle space battles as well or better -- they all resemble Battlestar Galactica after all -- but the combat sequences were the best thing about Mr. Nuttall's series for me and made the books worth reading.The "otherness" of the aliens was another strength, and I had a feeling by the end that Mr. Nuttall may have more to say about them in future books.  An important focus of the trilogy was the existence of factions on both sides, but the alien factions were an especially critical cause of the war.Mr. Nuttall had previously spent some time establishing the problem of communicating with the aliens, only to dispose of that issue fairly easily in the third book in order to make the diplomatic mission have a purpose, though it might have been even more interesting if it were still a huge barrier.Less satisfying to me was the continued interest in the personal stories of his main characters.  A little would have sufficed, and I occasionally grew impatient with the equal time spent on the banal problems caused by Prince Henry's hidden identity or the CAG's affair, on the one hand, and the existential threat to humanity on the other. Hundreds of millions of deaths around the world, and Henry's hatred for the paparazzi is repeatedly offered as motivating his decisions!  I suppose the whole Henry subplot found more purchase with readers in the UK.These criticisms should not deter one from the Ark Royal trilogy.  It may not rank among the best, but it is worth reading.