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This third and final volume in the Milkweed Triptych was enjoyable, but ultimately a disappointment. Tregillis continues to deliver on the fast-paced action, and handles the rewriting of the timeline of Bitter Seeds and The Coldest War well. With two Raybould Marshes running around, his decision to make Old Marsh's perspective first person and Young Marsh's third person kept the two narratives clearly separate. Some of the suspense is lost when it becomes clear that this "new" timeline is our actual history, which presumably isn't going to be obliterated by Eidolons, but the internal suspense (such as Liv and the baby heading off to doomed Coventry for safety) keeps the story moving.

It's the ending I object to, in which all the loose ends are tied up and Gretel finally receives her just reward: (view spoiler)[She's not killed, but marooned on a barren island by Marsh and Marsh with her wires cut off, and left with an ongoing supply of food so she'll live a long life in torment, without being able to use her power. (hide spoiler)]. It's said more than once that Gretel is evil, but aside from those assertions I don't see much evidence for her being anything but criminally insane. In particular, the interludes where we get inside her head reveal that she's completely doolally and focused entirely on creating a reality in which Young Marsh falls in love with her. Her attempts to kill Liv and Agnes are evil, but I'm not sure a person with her type of insanity can really be said to be evil. She is definitely not in the same class as von Westarp, who murdered and tortured children to achieve his goals in perfect sanity, and I don't even think she's in the same class as the necrophiliac Reinhardt, who burned a dozen kids out of vengeance. Gretel, like von Westarp's other children, needed to die to prevent the apocalypse; the two Marshes' justice for her is nothing more than personal vengeance, and it makes them less than heroic. What's unfortunate is that it fits with their personalities, so my question is, why should I have any respect for either of them?

I'm no less a fan of Tregillis's work because of this book, but I hope his next novel is less disappointing for not being part of an otherwise very satisfying trilogy.