The Stone Sky

An excellent ending to the series. Unlike most sci-fi, what I like best about these books is the characters, the human relationships. Motherhood is the strong theme in this book and it comes through achingly loud and clear. And that despite the mother and child being separated! The fleshing out of Nassun's character and story is really great.

Also the world building in this book continues to be excellent. The construction of Syl Anagist and the horror of it, doubled back with a visit to its ruins, all great. Also fleshing out the role of the Evil Earth. Just super well done.

I have one complaint about the series, which is that I found the use of aliases for characters disorienting. I can't tell if this is clever writing or I have bad reading comprehension or maybe it's just not as clearly written as it could be, but I had a hard time tracking characters across the different story timelines. Here's a little list of aliases for your convenience:

From the earlier books:

Damaya / Seyenite / Essun

The Stone Eaters:

Remwha / Steel / Gray Man

Gaewha / Antimony

Hoa / Houwha