Empery is the third and final book in The Trigon Disunity series by Michael P. Kube-McDowell. It picks up quite some time after the previous book Enigma and focuses on the aftermath of Merritt Thackery and his discovery of the Mizari sterilizer. The new galactic Empire is continuing its expansion even as certain members of its council are pushing for more and more preparation to defend against or potentially even attack the Mizari. Though the head of the council is against the idea of a first strike she understands that they may legitimately need a defense system and authorizes the construction of better military vessels. She quickly learns that the military councillor plans an attack anyway and she now has to rush and try to stop him. Even as she tries that Merritt Mackery has been drawn back into everything and decides to steal his old ship and travel towards the Mizari himself in order to try and find an alternate solution. Ultimately it may end up being out of all of their hands as they work on finding the best option for all of humanity.
This book was an interesting ending for an interesting series. Each book falls into the same timeline and progression of events yet at the same time they also all have drastically different focuses and even characters in many ways. It creates both a feeling of continuity and a feeling of discontinuity at the same time which is not an easy feat. That being said it does also create a pretty realistic portrayal of how humanity can go from an earth-bound culture to a space-faring culture. The science included in the book also seems pretty legitimate or realistic as the book takes into things many authors don’t such as time dilations caused by the space travel. This allows for certain elements to take center stage in a way that other similar books wouldn’t which I find rather fascinating. The characters are also rather entertaining as they seem to be pretty fleshed out. I would like to know more of their backstory as that is a little lacking at times in comparison to what was provided for Merritt Thackery in the previous book. The story still functions fine without that though. One of the things that this book does delve more into is the politics of this particular timeline. We see a lot more of that as the space service has to deal with all of the different political factions and their various agendas as well as the clash of cultures created by humanity attempting to unify. I feel like there is a lot more worldbuilding going on in the background of this book so it is no longer just humans from earth taking center stage. That creates an important distinction that goes along with the unifying Empire being slowly forged over the course of the book even if it is really only in the background. Overall it is a good boom that I am giving four out of five stars.
This book is a good example of highly realistic science fiction and if you prefer that type of work you should really consider trying this series out. I say series because you really do need to read the previous books before reading this one as you will probably struggle with the story otherwise. The books are predominantly aimed at adults but I could see older teenagers and young adults reading them as well. I would recommend only readers above the age of about fourteen or fifteen though. The series is good though and I hope you will consider them. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments if you do.