Wolf’s Bane: Good ending to a good series.

Wolf’s Bane (The Empire’s Corps, #14) by Christopher Nuttall
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Excellent!

The Commonwealth has won a great victory, smashing Wolfbane’s attempt to take Corinthian and driving Admiral Singh’s forces back into enemy space. Now, as the Wolves reel under the impact of their defeat – and powerful factions plot to take control of the government and military – Edward Stalker plans a final offensive to bring the Wolves to their knees.

But as mighty fleets clash in the inky darkness of space, infiltrators struggle to weaken a tottering edifice and both sides brace for the final confrontation, it all comes down to the last Terran Marines and a battle that will determine if the galaxy is to be united once again …

… Or thrown headlong back into a new Dark Age.

With Wolf’s Bane Christopher Nuttall ends the saga of The Empire’s Corps. Well, at least the story arc that has served as the backbone of the series so far. I would not be surprised if we see more books in this universe sometime in the feature though.

It was a good last book with a good ending. After 14 books in the series I also think it was a a good time to end it.

I will not talk about the writing itself. It is in the usual Christopher Nuttall style, that is very good with good characters etc…

The headbutting between Wolfsbane and the Commonwealth progresses into its logical big showdown and conclusion. Admiral Singh gets pushed further and further into a corner and her behavior becomes more and more psychopathic. I thought this was a bit of shame actually because she lost a bit of the respect that I actually had for her.

There are a few mishaps and reverses of fortune along the way but the Commonwealth is finally going in for the kill. I was hoping this would be a major space battle, and it is (several actually), but a large portion of the book is spent on subversion and provocation of an uprising on Wolfsbane and thus the final outcome is a mix between military space action and civil unrest. Personally, the latter interests me less than the first. Also, during the endgame Admiral Singh is not as impressive as she used to be and her actions sometimes leaves something to be desired.

Having said that it is still a excellent book and a good end to the series. I was in two minds what rating I should give, primarily due to my reservations mentioned above, but in the end I decided that anything less than five out of five would be undeserved.