Infinite Crown

Infinite Crown by J.N. Chaney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the fifteenth and final entry of J.N. Chaney and Terry Maggert’s The Messenger series, Newton “Dash” Sawyer’s crusade against the life-hating Deepers continues, with the key component of the Cygnus Realm he leads, the Kingsport, continuing to grow, with the Realm aiming for territory long held by the antagonistic aliens. Dash continues to pursue the enigmatic Pavel Hu throughout space, with the Messenger discovering the truth about human history, worrying at times whether the Realm’s mechs and other forces will be enough to defeat the Deepers. The book opens proper with a battle against the Deepers, Dash’s forces having an initial advantage.

The final battles versus the Deepers continue throughout subsequent chapters, and Dash hears about a possible contagion among the alien adversaries that seems to be killing them. At one point, Dash visits the portion of the martial space station known as the Forge exclusively accessible by the Messenger, with an upgrade to his mech the Archetype suggested. Furthermore, the Kingsport has grown to the point where it almost entirely envelops the Forge, and in the latter portion of the novel, Dash visits Old Earth with Sabina Lavarovna, recovering from a long time in cryosleep.

While the concluding action and epilogue ending the novel seem moderately hasty, the final Messenger book was, in my opinion, overall, a satisfactory conclusion to the science-fiction series, given its effective mixture of character development and plentiful action. Granted, it does have many of the issues present in its predecessors such as a lack of a reminder as to the appearances of the various characters, human and nonhuman alike, although a databank preceding the primary text does somewhat keep readers updated with the various terminology native to the series. Ultimately, I would definitely recommend this book to those who enjoyed prior entries.

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