I’m off work for the holidays. Sixteen long days of Christmas food and home improvement tasks. It’s my longest break of the year, and also the time when I can get a little more ambitious with my reading. 

You know what that means. It means I procrastinate big reading projects until the end of the year. And here at the end of 2018 I find myself with several large stacks of unfinished fat fantasies, trilogies, and longer series.

Well, they’re all going to have to wait. Because I want to start with Tom Toner’s Amaranthine Spectrum, an ambitious trilogy set in the far-distant 147th Century (How ambitious? The third volume has a 19-page glossary). The series just concluded with The Tropic of Eternity, published by Night Shade in August, and it has been one of the most acclaimed space operas on the market. Tor.com called “Among the most significant works of science fiction released in recent years,” and Locus proclaimed it “Marvelous…. a space opera of surpassing gracefulness, depth, complexity, and well, all-round weirdness.”

Here’s the description for the third volume, and all the publishing details. Now don’t bother me, I’m headed to my big green chair with some hot chocolate and a warm lap cat.

[Click the covers for space-sized versions.]

It is the 147th century. The mighty era of Homo Sapiens is at an end.

In the Westerly Provinces of the Old World, the hunt is on for the young queen Arabis, and the vile creature that holds her captive. In the brutal hominid Investiture, revolution has come. The warlord Cunctus, having seized the Vulgar worlds, invites every Prism to pick a side. In the Firmament, once the kingdom of the Immortal Amaranthine, all ships converge on the foundry of Gliese. The grandest battle in the history of mammalian kind has begun.

Perception, ancient machine spirit, must take back its mortal remains in a contest for the Firmament itself. Ghaldezuel, now the Grand Marshal of Cunctus’ new empire, must travel to the deepest lagoon in the Investiture, a place where monsters dwell.

Captain Maril, lost amongst the Hedron Stars, finds himself caught between colossal powers the likes of which he’d never dreamt.

But for Aaron the Long-Life, he who has waited so very, very long for his revenge, things are only getting started…

Here’s the complete publishing details.

The Promise of the Child (484 pages, $16.99 trade paperback/$14.99 digital, October 11, 2016)
The Weight of the World (392 pages, $26.99 hardcover/$11.99 digital, January 24, 2017)
The Tropic of Eternity (392 pages, $26.99 hardcover, August 7, 2018)

All three books were published by Night Shade Books. The covers are by Blacksheep Design.

See all of our coverage of the best in SF and series here.