Exigencies and despair are two of Stephen R. Donaldson's favorite words and there is no shortage of either in this final entry of the Gap Cycle. The fifth book of the series is the largest of the bunch, and despite some of the typical un-needed bloat found in any Donaldson book, it builds up to a worthy conclusion. Holt Fasner has put the Earth itself in jeopardy with his attempt to unlock Amnion secrets that will allow him to live forever and Warden Dios turns out to be just as culpable for the extreme actions he takes in an attempt to stop him.  Both have abused their power in unforgivable ways and those who have been the recipients of that abuse, mainly Angus and Morn, finally arrive back at Earth just in time for a public reckoning.

For the entire series there has been a plethora of misery dumped upon the main characters due to the background struggle between Holt and Warden and yet those characters have found a way to remain more true to the human race than anyone else.  Every character is deeply flawed and each must do some soul searching as the story builds to a tense conclusion where the actions of each and every individual can have dire consequences for everyone else. The tense situation is created by the Amnion who take some extreme actions of their own in an attempt to prevent the human race from spreading the formula for the anti-mutagen drug that would render their main weapon useless. It is hard to provide too many details without spoiling what happens but suffice it to say that the various story threads all converge and the myriad of secrets finally come out into the open in a fitting conclusion to an epic space drama.

Despite the dark nature of the entire series I did find it engaging and I am impressed in the manner in which the original short novel grew into an epic story arc. Donaldson found unique and creative ways for people to abuse each other with technology and much like he did with The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant he puts the reader in the awkward position of having to root for deeply flawed and evil characters to be successful in the name of the greater good. I like when an author makes me think about my own morals and choices and Donaldson does that very well. For the audiobook Scott Brick delivers yet another solid performance and helps to make this series a good listen.