As one could probably guess from the title, Celestia CV-02 is the first book (after 7!) of the series that doesn’t focus on the Aurora and her crew.

On one hand, it’s a nice change of pace and gives a much broader view of the universe the Aurora (and now Celestia) and their crews inhabit. On the other, we’ve spent a lot of time with the Aurora now! I want to know what’s next! (We do get some Aurora time though.)

Other than that, we get a good amount of backstory on Earth and see the invasion of Jung. One thing that has been missing this entire time and is still missing–which is starting to grow somewhat annoying–is any real insight into the Jung or view of their society. They’re this big bad evil empire… that we know nothing about. I just hope we’re not going to get a ’they were right all along twist at the end of this…

Overall, you can tell that Ryk Brown’s skill is getting far stronger as the series progresses and he wanted a more complicated structure. It’s jarring at times, but I think it works. I’m especially glad that the overarching story around Earth is moving forward. I’m curious to see where it goes from here.