“The battle lines are drawn. Queen Death is mustering her fleet. But who will stand against her?  As conflicts and betrayal threaten to shatter Atlantis’s fragile alliances with Guide’s Wraith and the Genii, humanity’s only hope of survival rests on the fate of an Ancient device — a weapon too terrible to use but too powerful to cast aside. A weapon capable of exterminating every Wraith in the galaxy, and with them every human carrying Wraith DNA… With Queen Death’s fleet fast approaching, Colonel Sheppard and his team must make their final choice. In the sixth and concluding installment of the STARGATE ATLANTIS Legacy series, the future of Atlantis will be decided — and more than one of her crew will be called upon to sacrifice everything in the fight for her survival…”

It’s shocking how this mini-series of novels has existed (and been released) under the radar.  Enough fans were dissatisfied with the series finale, and the subsequent cancellation of plans for direct-to-DVD titles, for me to think that they would be clamoring for an in-depth, highly consistent “Season 6” in book form.  After all, how often do fans say that if a show is canceled, the writers should finish out the storylines in novels?
 

And in this case, anyone who hasn’t checked out the Stargate Atlantis: Legacy series should be kicking themselves, because this is easily one of the best examples of how this can be done “right”.  Just about every lingering plot thread from Stargate Atlantis is covered and explored to a natural conclusion, and the scope of the mini-series allows the authors to delve into character far more than the series’ writers ever did.

On the television series, the Wraith were never given much of a culture.  They were defined by their actions; little time was spent delving into the reasons for their creation or what it actually means for humans and Wraith to be inter-related.  There was Todd/Guide, but even his character wasn’t given much in the way of depth, beyond his willingness to act outside of the norm now and then.

By far, that has been the benefit of the novels.  The Wraith have an actual culture, one that explains their actions throughout Stargate Atlantis, and it is remarkably cool.  In particular, this is explored through Teyla and her “Gift”, and everything that happened in the earlier novels culminates in moments that fully affirm her command.  Teyla’s strength as a character was never really in doubt, but in this novel, it’s very clear that she is one of the best written female characters in the Stargate universe.  Even Sam Carter, for all her backbone, doesn’t come close.

One very nice touch is how the tensions with erstwhile allies, such as Guide and the Genii, play out in conjunction with the decisions of the IOA and Stargate Command personnel on Earth.  Bringing in characters from Stargate SG-1 makes perfect sense, and they never upstage the Atlantis personnel; more often than not, they support Atlantis in such a way that their own stories intersect into the larger context of Stargate as a whole.

The authors (who have been sharing the writing duties throughout the mini-series) also provide a fitting resolution to the overall Stargate Atlantis saga without closing all the doors and wrapping everything with a shiny bow.  There is plenty of room for future books to continue the story forward as the new state of play in the Pegasus Galaxy unfolds.  I have no idea if the sales of these books would justify it, but considering that the Stargate SG-1 novels continue to this day, there’s at least a fair shot.

If there is one caveat to my pleasure with how this book ended the overall story, it’s how the first half of the book handles the prelude to the climactic battle.  Much of it is dedicated to delicate negotiations between all the different players, and one major sticking point is the doomsday weapon discovered in the previous volume.  One character chooses to hide the weapon, a choice that makes sense for the character under the circumstances.  But as the weapon’s destruction is the price for one ally’s entry into the final confrontation, it leads to a ridiculous number of scenes where the Atlantis crew tries to wiggle out the commitment, and the party in question repeats practically the same line of dialogue while standing absolutely firm.

Not only does the repetition get irritating, since the story feels like it can’t move forward until the issue is resolved, but it seems designed to force a few plot threads in the direction the authors desired.  It’s right on the edge of making characters so stubborn as to defy belief.  It takes a little bit of the shine off of what is otherwise a solid conclusion to a great mini-series.

Price: $4.99 (Kindle version)
Acquisition method: Amazon.com