I enjoyed Infinity Gate, Carey's first book about the Pandominion, immensely so I was looking forward to the second one which not only delivers but had a bonus surprise from the beginning: Echo Of Worlds is book two of two. So no tricky middle book in this trilogy, we were set up all on multiversal war in the first book, and now we get it. On the one side there is the machine based AI hive mind assimilating across worlds, and on the other The Pandimonium, and its less best and sometimes morally deficient scientists and military. Those are the battle lines, though, as per the first book, we are following a motley crew of survivors and stragglers who are trying to prevent this war because it has become clear that this is a repeating pattern in the multiverse and wipes everything out. So Rupshe, the AI built in the first book, marshalls their troops (two soldiers - one cat one human, the downloaded personality of the scientist that invented Rupshe and a version of interworld travel, a toy rabbit housing an agent of the Machine Intelligence, and a teenage rabbit girl) to find a third way. It is mainly action and adventure from the beginning, though there is a sense of bigger ideas floating around, particularly when the idea of an Earth that has been wholly covered by eons-old, hyper-evolved and intelligent algae turns up.

One of the strengths of the first book was, no matter how big or outlandish the ideas got, there was always a personality (often not human) to hold on to. That continues here, not least in the moral heart of the story Paz, the idealistic rabbit teenager who was thrust into this storyline when her best friend turned out to be a machine agent. Carey builds on the best traditions of disparate teams in literature and gets you to buy into their internal conflict as well as their external quest. And even though the stakes of the story are the entire fate of the multiverse, it never feels that our little group have no agency, their tiny guerilla actions whilst trying to understand each other are contrasted with two monolithic systems that aren't particularly interested in understanding each other and are used to winning with overwhelming force. Carey maintains the tempo and made me check three-quarters of the way in if this really wasn't a trilogy, as I couldn't see how he would wrap it up. But he manages a very satisfactory ending, without any waste. Terrific stuff.

A wonderful conclusion to The Infinity duology, picks up where the first book finished. Loved this as much as the first book. Good characters and the plotting was excellent and it pulled all the threads together. Looking forward to see what this author writes next. Thank to Little Brown books group/Orbit and Netgalley for this review ARC.

At his best, Carey is a huge writing talent. The Girl With All the Gifts grabbed me and wouldn’t let go from the first line. We were right alongside this child, who was being treated monstrously badly – and yet, seemed resigned to much of her bad treatment for whatever reason. I immediately was very much on her side and wanted to know more. And I’m banging on about that particular book, because there isn’t a whisker of the same style in this offering.

I’d been a bit disappointed at just how much info-dumping there was at the beginning of Infinity Gate, as I’m not a fan of such tactics. And yes… I know – it’s an accepted trope within science fiction, particularly once we’re in space or in the thickets of an alternative society. But even as I was wading through allll the explanation about the Pandominion as we were in the head of Rupshe, in particular – I was considering how this could have been streamlined and made slicker if the characterisation hadn’t been diluted by long explanations.

I was particularly frustrated, as there was a fascinating ensemble of quirky characters. My favourite in this book is the rabbit girl, Paz, whose character arc was the least affected by all the musings about the stakes involved… the nature of the Pandominion, etc, etc. That said, I was never tempted to DNF this one, as the storyline is intriguing enough to hold me – although I didn’t rush through the book on a wave of excited anticipation, either. All in all, if you like your epic science fiction to be world-spanning, involving huge stakes and lots of explanation about the history and how the world works, peopled by a range of interesting characters and a nicely twisty plot – then don’t hesitate to pick up this duology, you’ll love it. While I obtained an arc of Echo of Worlds from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
7/10

M. R. Carey provides an absolutely rollicking conclusion to the expansive story begun in Infinity Gate. The current literary trend of passing the narratorial football from character to character is put to excellent effect here, with Carey upping the suspense by shifting between perspectives at sometimes lightning pace and during moments of climactic action. With a conceptualisation as massive of this one - a story operating across numerous locations in the multiverse - the author's greatest challenge was conveying infinity, yet somehow he manages to get readers to internalise the scope of the stakes in this story, and to truly feel the size of the characters' undertaking. It is a truly impressive feat, leading to a satisfying and ultimately quite emotional conclusion.

Echo of Worlds: Book Two of the Pandominion by M.R. Carey concludes the multiverse-spanning saga with a thrilling and thought-provoking finale. Picking up where Infinity Gate left off, the Pandominion and Machine Hegemony clash in a devastating war, with each species trying to outsmart each other.
Carey’s strength lies in crafting richly imagined worlds and deeply compelling characters. From a character seeking redemption to the irreverent assassin Moon Sostenti, the team’s journey is perilous, emotional, and morally complex. Themes of redemption, AI ethics, and interdimensional warfare are woven into a fast-paced, action-packed narrative.
I preferred book 1 but the novel delivers a satisfying and imaginative ending, tying together every thread introduced in the first book. It’s a must-read for fans of thought-provoking, character-driven sci-fi.

<i>Echo of Worlds</i>, sequel to <i>Infinity Gate</i>, picks up where <i>Infinity Gate</i> left off, without interruption or major change of perspective. <i>Infinity Gate</i> focused mostly on the individual stories and backgrounds of the protagonists (Hadiz Tambuwal, Essien Nkanika, Moon Sostenti, Topaz Tourmaline Fivehills a.k.a. Paz, Dulcimer Coronal a.k.a. Dulcie, and Rupshe), and only nearing the end, all story lines converged. With all main characters together in the same place now, the second book evolves completely around the war between the Pandominion and the Machine Hegemony.

Rupshe devises a plan to end the war, and the team members part ways at times to go on smaller team missions that help this plan. This means there is a lot of variety in multiple adventures. Action scenes and calmer scenes alternate. In order to make the story even more appealing, a new powerful entity is added alongside the Pandominion and the Machine Hegemony: the Mother Mass. It all combines into a heck of a story with a rather unexpected conclusion (and an unexpected narrator we finally get to know).

One outstanding strength of the book that I particularly want to mention is the chemistry between several of the characters, and mainly when Moon or Paz are involved. Both beings –called selves because they are sentient, unlike AIs– evolved from animals like humans did, but Moon is of feline descent and Paz is of rabbit descent. You could easily forget they are not human, but the author created them well and retained certain characteristics of their animal ancestors, which leads to great and/or funny dialogue at times.

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She paused, giving Paz a quizzical appraisal. “Also, bunny in heavy armour. That’s both cute and hilarious.”
-- Moon, after Paz put on an armour suite
</i></blockquote>

I found <i>Infinity Gate</i> fantastic. I believe I like <i>Echo of Worlds</i> even better. While reading it, I realised more than once that the entire story must have been planned meticulously beforehand. It was so nice to discover that seemingly random facts that I assumed where only added to spice up the characters’ backgrounds in the first book, now came back as important. Nothing seemed left unused. However, not everything is brand new. Some of the ideas were already used in the past by other authors. Fortunately, it never feels “borrowed” because <b>Carey</b> adds a lot of his own, which makes the end result very fulfilling and definitely a recommendable read.

This was an absolute blast from start to finish. Building on the very strong foundation of its predecessor 'Echo of Worlds' hits the ground running on its way to delivering a complex and satisfying ending. It's satisfying to be given a complete sci-fi story of this nature over a mere two books where the norm may be to stretch out the story further, though I would very happily return to these characters and parallel worlds.

If I had one complaint, it's that the climax relies too heavily on convenient coincidences. That aside, I heartily recommend this to anyone who enjoys a well-constructed and original sci-fi story and wants to feel the force of a roller coaster in paper form.