You know when you’ve been watching a long-running TV series, and you’re aware you’re in the final season? Things have probably been ramping up for the last several episodes, building toward the inevitable finale, and you’re still not quite sure how everything is going to end. You’ve reached the penultimate episode; it probably ended on at least a slight cliffhanger, and you know there’s only one episode to go until it’s all over. You might be a little nervous, but you also can’t wait to see how everything wraps up.
That’s The Theory of Everything in a nutshell.
As it very well should be, of course, being the penultimate episode installment in this long-running television book series. But it captured that tone perfectly.
It felt like I’d blink and I had suddenly read 100+ pages without realizing it. The story alternated smoothly between Big Damn Heroes™ as our main cast worked tirelessly to combat enemies—both the Dzhvar and smaller-scale foes—and Big Emotions™ as one character in particular worked to come to terms with the mind-boggling revelations that got dumped on her in Liminal Space. I’m exhausted on all the characters’ behalf at this point; I don’t know how anyone is getting any sleep, although I guess when you can snap your fingers and wormhole wherever you need to go, you can afford to catch a few minutes of shut-eye before jetting off to wherever the danger rears its ugly head next.
Admittedly, most/all of the quantum and extradimensional science goes way over my head, so I’m just kind of along for the ride, but upon once again going to great lengths to test a theory, Alex makes another wild discovery about the timeline that’s sure to affect how the finale plays out. And speaking of the timeline, there are flashbacks scattered throughout the book, detailing how the current course of events played out from Mesme’s POV; it was kind of fun to walk back through some of the main events from the entire Amaranthe saga and reminisce about how far the story has come.
If you’ve followed my Amaranthe reviews for a while, you know I can’t write one without taking a whole paragraph to screech about my three Anaden cinnamon rolls. My guy Corradeo shines in this book, having successfully rekindled his relationship with the diati in Liminal Space. But what happens when he alone can’t handle the rapidly increasing Dzhvar incursions? 👀 And then Eren and Nyx are both such well-written, complex characters on their own, but paired together, they’re so deliciously complicated I actually can’t stand it. I confess to glancing at the table of contents while reading, eyeballing the chapter headings with locations my Anaden friends often frequent, and counting down the pages until I get there.
This is one of those stories that, after 24 (and soon to be 25) books, it felt like there was no way it could ever end, but deep down, you knew it had to wrap up sometime. Now I can’t believe that time is upon us. This is one of those stories where I imagine there might be a bittersweet element here and there, but by and large, I know it will all turn out favorably. But I still don’t know how exactly we’ll reach that favorable conclusion, and I very much look forward to finding out.
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ABOUT G.S. JENNSEN
G. S. Jennsen lives somewhere in the U.S., in a locale that may or may not be where she lived the last time she published a book (she’s a gypsy at heart), with her husband and one or more dogs. She has become an internationally bestselling author since her first novel, Starshine, was published in 2014. She has chosen to continue writing under an independent publishing model to ensure the integrity of her stories and her ability to execute on the vision she has for their telling.
While she has been a lawyer, a software engineer and an editor, she’s found the life of a full-time author preferable by several orders of magnitude. When she isn’t writing, she’s gaming or working out or getting lost in the mountains that loom large outside the windows in her home. Or she’s dealing with a flooded basement, or standing in a line at Walmart and wondering who all these people are (because she’s probably new in town). Or sitting on her back porch with a glass of wine, looking up at the stars, trying to figure out what could be up there.
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