4.5 stars.

I wasn't sure where they were going to take things in this book since the previous one seemed to wrap up the story fairly conclusively, well all except that little fleet that went off to Laconia never to be heard from again...

Of course there are a lot of other loose threads involving the massive gateways to other star systems, the protomolecule and the hundreds of new colonies that have popped up, but it took things in a surprising direction, starting with a time skip and escalating from there.

This is essentially the first book in a new storyline and while I've enjoyed the previous books, I loved this one.