The Empire of Ashes

We reach the big battle, where all our characters need to get together and duke it out with the White and his army. Yay!

It took me years to finally get to this book. Somehow I didn't want to do it, I didn't know how the story was going to have everything resolved. Don't get me wrong, it did, though... I would be lying if I said this wasn't my least favourite book in the series.
The ideas are still great and still, something isn't as satisfying about this one as I would have wanted it to be, which is doubly annoying as this book is LONG. There would have been space. Then again, that space was spent on repetitive descriptions of random new guns and bombs the characters just invented. On military things, like what group went in what direction. Just too much filler.

I do still recommend this series, though. The thing I specifically really appreciate about it is the fact that even the characters with supposedly good intentions mess up. Human nature was portrayed perfectly. Sure, we have a revolution and in most books, especially nowadays would have portrayed the poor workers as the noble ones. Here? They were far from ideal. They were just as clueless and prone to mindless violence.
Another thing is, relationships between people fail sometimes by the fault of none of the parties. Not every romance ends with perfection and that doesn't mean one of the people cheated or lied or was a horrible person all along. Another very well-executed thing about the portrayal of characters.

Some elements didn't go anywhere. You were made to believe the shortage of product was a huge deal or that Tinkerer was very important, then suddenly the topic just fizzled out.

All in all, a solid series, with a slightly lackluster ending.