The first part of the prequel trilogy to Jean Johnson’s Theirs Not To Reason Why series will be familiar to returning readers. It’s just as fond of verbose monologues and musings regarding ethics, with the only outliers being the inclusion of a seemingly pointless (beyond straining the ability to suspend disbelief) romance and a strangely heavy focus on Hawaiian culture.
The second is a disaster: The protagonist morphs into a short-tempered scold, the Terrans reveal themselves to be hypocritical authoritarians, a couple extraneous deus ex machina pop up, and the work as a whole turns out to be a variation of the ‘enlightened foreigner sets out to save ignorant native‘ genre of storytelling with the one unique facet being the exploration of ageism via inconsistently conflating it with (alternately) classism and racism… which is most certainly not a positive. The romance aspects continue to lack any noteworthy purpose.
There was only one thing in my mind that could possibly save the trilogy’s conclusion, and that was (at the very least) the acknowledgement of the hypocrisy inherent in the Terrans continuously demanding the V’Dan stop treating them like V’Dan when they themselves insist on treating the V’Dan like Terrans. An acknowledgment which unsurprisingly never came. Instead, we get the expected and infuriating result of the V’Dan people being forced to undergo what amounts to a partial lobotomy presented as a justified solution. An ultimately exhausting and ignoble end to what began as an entertaining first contact scenario (though there are a few decent combat scenes in the second half).
So overall? I can’t suggest bothering with this trilogy unless you’re the type who likes to complain about microaggressions and want something that preaches to the choir with unearned self-righteousness. Anyone else would likely be better off reading through Mass Effect‘s backstory instead.