Sten vs. the Eternal Emperor, with the stakes being intergalactic civilization itself. Cole and Bunch's disguised polemic (see the afterword) comes to a climax, as Sten leads a rebellion against the Empire, we learn of the Eternal Emperor's origins, and final, fateful course of the Empire is made.

Good action and adventure, with minimal explicit preaching but lots of nicely crafted character bits, bringing to a satisfying conclusion the entire series. The main critique I have is the overwhelming use of portmanteau compound nouns (flashspot, bloodspatter, wordsplurge) to give things a "futuristic" action sensibility that is hardly needed.