The Bound Worlds by Megan O’Keefe

Megan O’Keefe delivers the third and final volume of her Devoured Worlds trilogy The Bound Worlds in the same style at the last two instalments – breathlessly. And as if this series is not complicated enough – with body printing and intelligent viruses and great houses – O’Keefe adds a new galaxy-ending threat and time travel into the mix. Suffice to say that this review may contain spoilers for earlier volumes. Readers who like their world building complex and their science fiction action-packed should go back to the very different but no less engaging first volume in this series The Blighted Stars.

The Bound Worlds starts just a few months after the end of The Fractured Dark. Tarquin, head of the Mercator house, has set up an infection-free base of operations on the habitable planet known as Seventh Cradle. His companion and lover Naira is with him but after an assassination attempt on Tarquin she leaves him to investigate. While Naira is away Tarquin discovers an even bigger problem than the one they thought they were fighting. A potentially universe ending effect on key physical variables. And with all this going on it is not long before the star-crossed lovers are once again separated and somewhat at odds. All that is before Tarquin starts to get ominous messages that apparently come from the future.

In The Bound Worlds O’Keefe continues this series style of huge cliffhangers, breathless action and character reversals and double reversals. It can be exhausting and after all they have been through readers might be wondering – haven’t Tarquin and Naira been through enough? And of course, as those readers would also know, just when they start thinking that things could not get worse, O’Keefe pulls another yet another rug out.

Following on from her excellent Protectorate books (which began with her assured debut novel Velocity Weapon), The Bound Worlds is the final book in O’Keefe’s second trilogy. Both series stand out for their detailed world building (although some of that detail – such as the interhouse rivalries – gets lost in the shuffle of this volume) but also O’Keefe’s commitment to character as the driver of plot. O’Keefe shows once again that she is bright star in modern space opera and it will be fascinating to see where she goes next.

The Bound Worlds by Megan O'Keefe

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8.0/10