Product Description

The allied factions of humanity, along with the waning Ildiran Empire and the powerful water elementals and sentient trees, have defeated the near-invincible alien race of the hydrogues, driving them back into the depths of gas-giant planets. But before peace can heal the wounds between the races, two ancient enemies return: the capricious fiery elementals, the faeros, who mean to burn all those who fought alongside their mortal enemies. And the lost hive race of the Klikiss, who intend to reclaim all the worlds they inhabited 10,000 years earlier, worlds that are now home to many human colonies. Meanwhile, the leader of the Terran Hanseatic League, Chairman Basil Wenceslas, intends to pull all of humanity's unruly stepchildren into his iron grip - even if it means he has to hold the Ildiran Mage-Imperator hostage, risking renewed war with an entire alien civilization. THE ASHES OF WORLDS brings to a thrilling conclusion the myriad storylines of galactic warfare and personal betrayals, starlost romances and titanic alien conflicts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43291 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 684 pages

Customer Reviews

Finished - and thats about it
Whilst this book resolves all plot lines and manages to bring to an end a complex story with multiple interwoven plot lines, it does so at the cost of style and flair, with the books written structure becoming a vehicle for presenting plot lines rather than a structure that was in any way enjoyable to read.

Other than to finish reading the series I cannot recommend this book. Indeed on balance after the first 3 or 4 of the series, the books become tedious and onerous to read, therefore I would not recommend starting it.

Out with an intriguing whimper...
What a strange book.

I guess Kevin J. Anderson's "The Ashes of Worlds", the final book in his "Saga of Seven Suns", is an improvement over the previous volume, "Metal Swarm", which was action-packed but predictable and not very engrossing. TAOW contains a lot more intrigue, twists and turns - but I was left wishing that some of the action from Metal Swarm had been transferred into this book. In MS there was too much action; in TAOW there was too little. There is only really one major battle in this book, and that lasts a few pages. Everything gets resolved satisfactorily, and not without drama - but the action just isn't very epic compared to what has come before. It seemed like a let-down coming from the final book of such an immense series.

On the positive side, kudos to Anderson for resolving all plotlines in a satisfying way. And we mustn't, of course, forget to applaud him for the sheer AMBITION of what he was attempting to do with this series. Here we have sci-fi on a truly cosmic scale. We have battles between the elements themselves: fire, water, earth. We have whole planets destroyed and even whole suns extinguished as a result of the titanic conflicts waged in this series. That's massive. And the Klikiss robot Sirix was a really great character, in my opinion, and every scene with him in it was brilliantly envisioned.

But make no mistake, I had hoped for better than this from The Ashes of Worlds. Rather than ending the series with a planet-busting bang, TAOW ends it with a wental-water whimper, albeit an occasionally entertaining one.

A brilliant ending to KJA's Magnum Opus (Of career so far)
The Ashes of Worlds (Saga of Seven Suns 7)


This book is a brilliant conclusion to a fantastic epic. I really enjoyed this series, I especially like how each chapter follows a specific character, very cleverly done.
If you've read the previous six you'll know the story so far, if you haven't the brilliant and detailed story sof far and glossary fill in all the holes.
This final chapter leads into a final confrontation which is well written and planned out from start to finish.
I would recommend this to any fan of science fiction as Kevin J Anderson's work is a brilliant epic which hasn't really been done before.