Book Review: Accretion
The action-packed, emotionally devastating third book in J. Dianne Dotson’s Questrison Saga.
Before I started reading Accretion, Dianne warned me on Twitter to “buckle up”, and… Oh boy, yeah. It’s been a wonderful journey going through this space opera saga, and I’m looking forward to reading its conclusion with Luminiferous. Apologies to everyone for the delay in putting out this review. I recently reviewed Gareth L. Powell’s Light of Impossible Stars and About Writing, and for some reason my brain was adamant I only had two reviews to write, not three. So when I did the previous two reviews, this one slipped my mind. Profuse apologies to Dianne, especially, who was champing at the bit to hear my reaction to this one. So… here it is.
Blurb
Chaos in the galaxy. A gathering of forces, heroic against malevolent. A race to save or ensnare all civilizations from cataclysm and great evil.
In this third installment of The Questrison Saga, Galla-Deia and her team of humans and aliens must recruit telepaths to end the catastrophic Event. With refugees fleeing disaster and interstellar communications disrupted, trust in the galactic government falters. Destructive Paosh Tohon feeds upon the suffering caused by the Event, ever seeking its own telepathic forces to extend its reach. The heroes called Questri must draw upon latent powers and rely on both new and familiar allies to stop a galactic apocalypse.
Review
Accretion picks up immediately from where Ephemeris left off, with our heroes scouring the galaxy for ancient Devices and telepaths with which to counter the dual threats of the Event and Paosh Tohon, except now, the Event has happened and everything is in disarray. The book starts off with a recap of the story so far, which I thought was a nice touch, then it leaps into action once more. I love it when series take the big world-ending cataclysm that everything’s been pointing towards and just bring it forwards. It’s a great subversion I’m absolutely here for. It shows that the universe doesn’t operate on, nor cares a jot, for the timescales of the heroes. Then the story becomes less about stopping it from happening, but dealing with the fallout of it happening. That’s great because it’s a huge change to the world and shakes the story to its core. This subversion reminds me of The Shadeward Saga by Drew Wagar - I won’t go into detail on that, but it’s similarly well-executed.
The returning characters are magnificent in Accretion as they are more well established in their roles and can really go for it. And there are also returning characters from Heliopause, which was very nice to see. There’s not many brand new major characters introduced, apart from the telepathic Prince Hazkinaut. He’s a great character; earnest, enigmatic, but also a bit cowardly. He and Galla have an interesting dynamic. In general the character work in Accretion is excellent, and this is where Dianne’s exhortation to “buckle up” comes in, because it gets very heavy emotionally. Even while everything seems to be going right for our heroes, it’s all on a knife-edge and could go wrong at any moment. Of course, it does, certain characters don’t make it (trying to be as vague as possible) and the weight of grief and loss is beautifully handled. Thing is, you kind of expect it, but it’s no less of a gut-punch when it happens. And the ending, which was utterly devastating, reminded me a lot of a certain part of Mass Effect 2 (I won’t say which bit; spoilers). Very fitting, given the characters involved. It actually had me going “Nooooo!” so I’m very glad no one else was in the house when I finished the book!
I feel like my one issue from Heliopause and Ephemeris - namely that things move along a bit too swiftly - is pretty much rectified here in Accretion. We get a good amount of time to dwell on the consequences of what happens, and it’s very good.
In short, Accretion is an excellent third entry in the saga, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Luminferous holds in store for Galla and the Questri. Highly recommended.
