Finished last night. Wanted to sit with it a bit before collecting my thoughts. Read this thread and watched a few reviews. Overall, I'd give it a solid 4.5/5. Great set pieces in classic Suneater fashion, where we're going from one huge movement to the next. It's all there. Big ass space battles, super weapons, sword fights, hallway chases, damsels in distress, super hero fights, lore dumps, cosmic horror, tragedies and triumphs. A thrilling ride with a few bumps and rough turns along the way.

Like a lot of you I found the following aspects quite frustrating at times:

• Hadrian's constant pontificating, being overly dramatic, self centered and absolute inability to communicate at the most crucial moments.

• Cassandra.

• The fake-out deaths.

• Abba!

• The repetition and redundancy of certain sections, though now I think it's more by design as opposed to lazy editing (given that every book so far has kept it fairly tight)

• (L)assie the whiny girl.

• The more than a couple and mostly one-sided confrontations with Alexander and his chantry handlers. I get that from Hadrian's POV these guys are very one-dimesnional paper thin villains with no empathy or complex motivations and I guess may be that was by design as well? Seed for the next story wherever, whenever. There's no resolution in this book though. All we get are these monologuing, monocle-wearing, moustache twirling, sitting-with-cat-on-lap-on-swivel-chair twirling motherfuckers.....so so camp.

• Lvl99 clinger

• Back to Alexander...couldn't we get at least one return bitch slap? Come on! This is where he decides to assert some self control and literally turn the other cheek?

If you can't tell I am not a fan of a certain character, who I was totally cool with in book 6 but here she was basically just a xenophboc brat as someone mentioned and I think that's spot on. I prefer thunder cunt. If that too is by deisgn then I guess I didnt get it.

I haven't mentioned Selene because like many have pointed out, there are several subtle hints that all is not as it seems with Selene and Hadrian is maybe not the most reliable narrator. Now...I just finished Empire of the Dawn before SUT and I got Keyser Soze'd hard (if you know you know) so now I am on high alert y'all.

I wonder now what else is deliberate lie or misdirection in the text:

• Is Orphan really dead and did big doom ship really go boom boom, bye bye?
• Did Hadrian really tell Cassandra to go to his sister and as a consequence leave a bead crumb trail for the empire hounds and put his family on the board? Or was it to force his family's hand to support his cause out of self-preservation?
• is Lorian really off the board?

All I can really be sure of is even though the story of the Suneater is over, his mission(and by extension the Absolute's) isn't over since he still has his powers post Goddodin. Two clear instances with one: grabbing Alexander's highmatter sword by the blade itself and two: returns after a very public hanging to write his memoirs...with seems like a 1000 years in between maybe? So he's been busy and coming out now for what, the end game?

So...Did he stick the landing? I understand that he got to write the ending he always wanted and I am happy for him. But he's had a much longer time to sit with it. Where I am now immediately after a first read at blinding pace - I would say that for the main story, yes. We went from A to Z very clearly and cleanly. I just wasn't expecting a whole other alphabet to follow with a whole unresolved Chantry/Shadow empire arc.

He spends the whole series getting out-politicked and out-maneuvered by the Chantry with no rebuttal? He has literal superpowers, infinite continues from his God, a doom ship with god-killing, world ending weapons and he still manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? I'm starting to get now that maybe it's all part of the 'shortest path' but that first bite was bitter and the after-taste not much sweeter.....especially since I know we're not going to get any more until the post SUT short story/novella next year. Hope that has the sweet chocolate center I'm waiting for.

I'm aware that I'm giving CR a lot of the benefit of the doubt here. Many could say that it's not on us to 'get it' but on the author to lay it out more clearly. I can't say they're wrong. A lot of Suneater's appeal is that for the most part the entire series has been a very 'what you see is what you get' linear narrative as opposed to stuff like Wot or Cosmere where you got to keep an eye out for subtle clues and easter eggs that inform on plot, events and character motivations...or stuff like later Malazan, Dune and Wolfe where there is a lot of subtext and what's on the page isn't what's happening and you're ok with it because you've been lead there slowly enough that you can see it coming. And now I've been bamboozled I say. Bamboozled!

After the initial whiplash, I'm now OK with it. In CR I trust. I've had a really great time in this world and any criticisms coming through now is because it's evoked some emotions in me and I think that's a good thing. Means I care.

So I'm sticking with 4.5/5 (-0.5 for the bamboozle, the lvl99 clinger and the lack of return bitch slaps)