A ruin, great and free A novel

Two years after the anti-monster riots, monsters are still being hunted and driven into hiding. The monster settlement of Moon has survived in relative peace, but having little connection to the rest of the world chafes at the residents who miss what life can offer. The Cult of the Zsouvox is ready for its stand against the Order of Asha, with Moon becoming its deadly battleground. These forces, along with the Black Hand, make the residents face the truth and debate if they should run and hide to survive or fight for the home they have built. Individual storylines twist together under one central theme of community that asks who the people are who create and destroy community and what happens to the families that are lost and found amid the chaos. Readers end back where they started the series--with gods and monsters. VERDICT Turnbull's writing never disappoints. The conclusion to "The Convergence Saga" (following We Are the Crisis) is stunning in its emotional depth while still appealing to readers looking for an action-filled fantasy.--Kristi Chadwick

A trilogy and a multiversal crisis conclude, with a bonus follow-up to a previously standalone novel. The actions of the violent human-supremacist group known as the Black Hand have driven witches, shifters, vampires, and other assorted monsters and their allies into small towns hidden by magic. In the refuge called Moon, some of the restless residents are sneaking out to visit neighboring towns, threatening to blow their cover both to the Black Hand and to the Black Hand's secret monster backers, the Cult of the Zsouvox. Meanwhile, in the universe from Turnbull's first novel,The Lesson (2019), Patrice Paige uses technology that the alien Ynaa left behind after their disastrous first contact with humanity to increase her political influence and shield the Earth from all future alien encounters, even as the Ynaa known as Mera rebels against her people's conquest of other planets. But these crises pale against the larger-scale threat: Both of these universes, and indeed all universes, are threatened by the Zsouvox, a creation of the gods that seeks to devour everything that exists. It's a lot to take in; as always, Turnbull packs in a ton of plot within a relatively economical number of pages. The advantage of writing in a multiverse is that it allows you to throw in any storyline; whether it makes sense to have added a resolution toThe Lesson here is difficult to say. It does share a common theme with the main monsterverse plot, best summed up by that well-known aphorism attributed to Spider-Man's Uncle Ben: With great power comes great responsibility. If you have magic, physical strength, advanced alien tech, and/or immortality, it behooves you to do the right thing; the trick is figuring out what the right thingis. Turnbull settles the more cosmic conflicts and perhaps even some of the personal ones, but leaves the broader social confrontation of prejudice somewhat more open-ended, other than suggesting that while violence can be remarkably effective in quashing opposition on a small scale, it's not going to solve the larger problem. Given how central anti-monster prejudice is to the story, it leaves the Convergence Saga feeling curiously unresolved. But it's hard to say how Turnbullcould have resolved it, and perhaps that nagging feeling is deliberate on his part. Magic might fan the flames of hatred, but people don't need the devil to do evil. Brilliant and profoundly creative, but not entirely easy or satisfying to grasp. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.