War in Heaven

This is the final book in Zindell's trilogy “A Requiem for Homo Sapiens”. It has sat, unread, on my bookshelf for 20 years. While I'd loved book 1 (nearly as much as my favourite book, Zindell's 1st novel Neverness) I struggled to finish the 2nd volume the first time I read it and never even commenced the 3rd. Having re-read Neverness and books 1 and 2 in the last few months it made sense to attempt this one and get some closure.
It was so much better than I expected, thankfully there wasn't too much spaceship fighting (book 2 was bogged down with it). The best bits are always when the protagonist, Danlo, is interacting with others, especially his best friend/worst enemy Hanuman. Characters returned from the stars (and previous tales) and were folded back into the narrative. It's was good to have Bardo back, he's always good value.
I always loved Zindell's use of poetry and mathematics, but was disappointed that there wasn't much poetry this time. The use of the words “fearful symmetry” to describe Danlo made me smile but the word “tiger” did get overused and felt clumsy. At times the author writes like poetry, the words flow across the page and paint pictures in my mind. Unfortunately sometimes he almost writes like a child, clumsily stacking words like building bricks. Perhaps this is meant to reflect Danlo's childlike character but I think not.
The philosophies touched on in the previous novels were rounded out and explored well. Can a person truly face themselves, the universe and all it contains and say “yes”? What will one have to sacrifice in order to make this acceptance?
There was an actual proper twist at the end that I did not see coming! Definitely worth a re-read of the whole trilogy again to see if I can spot any clues or to see if it changes the way I read them. Probably not for a while though, these are hefty tomes with this book covering 791 pages. I'm off to read something a bit shorter next!