his book is the final segment of a two-part tale begun in 2004's Schism. Unlike many sequels, which can be read sensibly alone, this new book is pretty much explicitly the second half of one big novel, and readers will benefit from tackling Schism first—although Asaro very professionally and generously gives a bit of helpful backstory in Key.
In Schism, we focused on the planet Lyshriol. Here lives Roca Skolia, mother to the current military ruler of the Skolian Empire, a man named Kurj. Kurj is one of two Keys, psions who control the mental communications web that sustains the Empire. Roca is currently married to a native of Lyshriol, Eldrinson Valdoria, and they have 10 children between them. Our protagonist is Sauscony, or "Soz," a smart and talented 18-year-old who wants nothing more than to enter the off-world Dieshan Military Academy and follow in her half-brother Kurj's footsteps. (She's already been nominated his eventual heir.) But her father, a rustic fellow, forbids her, and she has to violate his trust in order to leave. The end of this novel finds her well along in her military training. But on other fronts, the Skolian Empire's antagonists, the Traders, are fomenting war. And these so-far covert hostilities have robbed her of her brother Althor and gravely injured her father.
As The Final Key opens, we see Soz stepping into new positions of responsibility. She's assigned field training on a warship named after her mother, Roca's Pride. The ship holds a backup Chair, a unit of ancient technology from the previous Ruby Empire, which the two Keys—Kurj and a woman named Dehya—use to maintain the psion web. War breaks out in full while Soz is in space, and eventually she finds herself forced to use the Chair without proper training, at great risk to her own life but with the slim hopes of saving the Skolian Empire from otherwise certain destruction.
Concurrently and elsewhere, we follow the stories of the rest of her clan. We witness how her father recovers from injuries inflicted by an Aristo Trader; how her brother Eldrin deals with an addiction to a psion drug; how her other brother, Shannon, finds a home among the Blue Dale Archers of Lyshriol; and how her mother deals with her own victimization by the Traders.
A Dune-like saga matures
This is the 11th volume in Asaro's long-running cosmic tapestry about the years post-2122, when Earth breaks out into the galaxy and finds two other empires already established. Her timeline (included as an appendix) is extensive and detailed enough that she has no trouble finding interesting moments, as yet unexplored, in which to stage new adventures, of which this Triad duology is one of the neater.
Asaro creates two vibrant cultures: the cloistered world of Lyshriol, with its almost Tolkienesque ambiance, and the cosmopolitan world of the Dieshan Military Academy and associated Imperial venues. Alternating between these two offers nice contrasts. In the vast extended Valdoria-Skolia clan, we get some real feeling of family dynamics, with jealousy, hero worship, sibling rivalry and husband-wife affections all playing their parts. (I thought it was quite neat how Eldrin, married to big-shot Dehya, is a kind of "desperate house-husband," a swell twist on male-female roles.)
Asaro's portrait of interstellar intrigue, weird socio-political customs and galactic history has come to approach the neighborhood of such classics as Frank Herbert's Dune series. She's in the ballpark with C.J. Cherryh as well, to cite a more recent example. But there's also a kind of old-fashioned Andre Norton/C.L. Moore vibe that I find attractive. And, in fact, the climactic space battle in Chapter 18 simultaneously channels Doc Smith and Stephen Baxter, all to the good.
As for Asaro's plotting, suffice it to say that I was fully surprised by Soz's eventual relative importance in the scheme of things, and by the identity of someone who actually surpasses her. It was smart not to make Soz a superwoman who outshone everyone, but rather a "merely" talented, fallible individual who contributed just part of the victory. Realism and fantasy in the proper proportions.
