The Last Watch

By: J. S. Dewes

Narrated by: Andrew Eiden, Nicol Zanzarella

"Both readers are brilliant and nail the characterization in a way that instantly connects them to the listener..Everything here is top-notch." -- Booklist, starred review

The Expanse meets Game of Thrones in J. S. Dewes's fast-paced, sci-fi adventure The Last Watch, where a handful of soldiers stand between humanity and annihilation.

The Divide.

It’s the edge of the universe.

Now it’s collapsing—and taking everyone and everything with it.

The only ones who can stop it are the Sentinels—the recruits, exiles, and court-martialed dregs of the military.

At the Divide, Adequin Rake commands the Argus. She has no resources, no comms—nothing, except for the soldiers that no one wanted. Her ace in the hole could be Cavalon Mercer--genius, asshole, and exiled prince who nuked his grandfather's genetic facility for “reasons.”

She knows they’re humanity's last chance.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

Critic reviews

Praise for The Last Watch

“An epic tale of survival at the end of the universe.”—Megan O'Keefe, author of Velocity Weapon

“Crisp writing, vivid characters, and a plot that beguiles the imagination. The Last Watch is a stunning military sci-fi debut. I was hooked from the opening lines. If you like science fiction, then this book is definitely for you.”—Jasper T. Scott, USA Today Bestselling Author

“The Last Watch is an amazing debut. The smart world-building and explode-off-the page action scenes make it perfect for fans of The Expanse and other fast-paced Sci Fi. I predict that Dewes is going to be a 'must read' author for years to come.”—Michael Mammay, author of Planetside

“More fun than that time The Expendables, the Dirty Dozen and all of The Night’s Watch all got picked up by a random quantum tear in the fabric of spacetime and shot out the edge of the universe to kick ass and save humanity.”—John Birmingham, author of the Axis of Time trilogy

“Take the action of Marko Kloos' Frontlines novels, mix in the intricate world building of Game of Thrones or Warhammer 40,000, and light the fuse. . . . Bursting with snappy dialogue and detail and furious with action, you’ll want to catch your breath when it’s over, and then you’ll want more. Bring it on.”—Dayton Ward, bestselling author


“A scary edge-of-reality setup, cool martial-arts tattoos, interesting time anomalies, and OMG! The Universe is contracting!? Clear your schedule, because once you've gotten on this roller coaster, you're not going to want to get off until you've ridden it to the end.”—Emily Devenport, author of Medusa Uploaded

“The Last Watch has it all! Risky orbital maneuvers! Knife fights with grotesque aliens! Mysterious ancient artifacts! Secret royalty! Tragic backstories! It's classic military space opera with a touch of the cosmic.”—David Levine, winner of the Andre Norton Award for Arabella of Mars

Enjoyed this one

Although the "Science" seems really far fetched, this was a fun story with interesting characters. looking forward to next book.

Another "new to me" author

I keep going back and forth with trying to decide whether or not it is better to read reviews prior to reading a book. Sometimes it is extremely helpful, yet other times, it can color your expectations - whether good or bad - and create some pre-conceived opinions that you may not have reached on your own.

Why am I mentioning this? Well, I wanted to get a peek at what this book was about and got caught going down the rabbit hole with reviews. One of the comments I read was that there wasn't enough character development and we didn't get enough reasons to like the main characters, to root for them. So when I started reading, that was in the back of my mind.

In the end, I enjoyed this book. The storyline, the world building, and yes, the characters were unique, interesting, and well developed. I really liked the two main MC's - Adequin Rake and Cavalon Mercer - but Cav was completely my favorite. Yes, there could have been more character development. It would have been great to learn more about their backgrounds earlier in the book but I still felt enough of a pull for Cav and for Rake to understand them and to root for them.

Where I think the concept might have been started was where there is a fairly significant loss of life in the beginning of the story, but because it was mostly at the beginning and we didn't really KNOW any of the characters, it was more like just reading about an event. There was no actual "feelings" for me one way or another. That is dramatically different from the end where there is another "event" that definitely hit me in the feels, even though this character in particular wasn't that well developed either, but by that time I WAS invested with Rake and it impacted me for that reason.

I will say that by the end of the first book there was enough character growth (especially in Cavalon) that I honestly FELT proud of him and was completely invested in his journey. Rake, on the other hand, was a little more difficult to unpack, but her personality traits and her utter confidence and strength made it easy to respect her. There were some fun secondary characters- Em, Jackin, Owen and Puck - that also seemed to add to the breadth of the story.

I'm not much of a science fiction fan, but this book was easy enough to follow along with. There was enough "science lingo" to make things seem plausible and there weren't that many times where you just had to throw out any plausibility - at least, it all seemed to work once you bought into the initial concept. I listened to most of this on audio and felt like the narrators, specifically the male narrator - Andrew Eiden - did a fantastic job. This book seems like it was written to be made into a movie and after finishing the book I learned that the author is a screen writer. That actually made sense because there were many, many descriptive visual cues in the story that seemed to make the movie in my head easier to develop.

So, I am off to book 2. After all, saving the universe is not an easy job - I need to follow along with the gang to see what's going to happen next......

Character transition

Kept me interested over the miles. Good one for a drive. On my way to the sequel

Only complaint was that it ended…

Great, another fantastic story that I got hooked on too soon! But really pretty decent character development and some twists on old themes.

It’s fine

This was recommended to me as a fan of The Expanse and Mass Effect, and broadly speaking I get why that comparison exists.

However, unlike those franchises, the characters here behave in juvenile ways that seem more meant to generate tension than to be representative of a real human character. Rake, for instance is this experienced soldier but often behaves like a little girl when the plot needs her to. Also Kavalon ends up being this sort of Wesley Crusher type savant who you just know will luck his way through events.

Overall it’s a fun read with excellent reading, but it’s held back by characters and plot who don’t flow as well as the best of the genre.