Finally finished with this mammoth book!

Boy, what a rollercoaster ride the The Last Hour of Gann was! Overall, I would say I had mixed emotions at various points throughout this book but for the most part really enjoyed reading it.

The premise of this book is about how a group from Earth sent by an organisation the Manifestors to start a colony in a galaxy far, far away crash land on an alien planet when the ship malfunctions. The main character is Amber, who has had a rough and hard upbringing on Earth, her mother a prostitute died and left her and her sister Nicci desolate. Her solution was to make a life on a new colony by joining the Manifestors, she would receive all the necessary things to start up life anew. When they crash land on this alien planet, the first life they stumble across is the Sword of Sheul, Meroaq (aka a priest Lizardman). The story then basically follows the two of them and the rest of the crash survivors as they try to navigate the dangers of the planet and make it to the Holy Temple, Xi'Matezh.

The book itself is split into several different 'mini-books' that break up various segments of the storyline. Personally the first two chapters which make up the first 100 or so pages I found pretty dry and confusing (particularly Meroaq's inroduction). The story as one may expect really kicks off once Amber and Meroaq meet and they have to learn to understand one another, learn how to cohabit and learn to cross the dangerous and desolate land to find the Holy Temple. It's during this time that the relationship between the two really blossoms across the book (and this really is a slow-burn romance) that develops between the two. It's an interesting concept because biological they are very different, human and lizardman, however I tried not to think too much about that concept.

The characters are what really drove me nuts about this book. Amber and Meroaq for the most part I really liked. Amber was a strong, resourceful and determined female character and I really liked her. She wanted to learnt to hunt, to learn to live off the land, to make things, to make a life and survive. I did find the fat-shaming a little repulsive and annoying, and the fact that everybody called her a bitch because she had strong views. This is just classic hatred of women for having a voice. If Amber had been a man, that never would have happened.

Meroaq was very surly, devoted and a little sexist but overall I really liked him. He always had Amber's best interests at heart and he was easily read through the bullshit that the other manifestors said.

However, the rest of the characters in this book were literally the worst. I think R. Lee Smith's intention was to obviously make them unlikeable, however they were such horrid human beings.

Nicci, Amber's sister was by far the worst character in this book. She was uncaring, spineless, whiny and such a wet-fish. She could do nothing for herself. Amber was her crutch for the whole book and the more the book went on the worse she got. In addition to her, was Scott, the 'leader' of the Manifestors who was one of the original crew. He was spiteful, power-mad and entirely idiotic. For the majority of the book Scott lead a hate campaign against Amber which grew old pretty fast and was frustrating at times. It's part of the reason I didn't rate this book higher because the story felt like it outgrew some of this tension and conflict between these characters. It did add good moments of drama and some interesting excitement, but I can't say I enjoyed reading about Scott and Nicci whenever they made an appearance.

The other major aspect of this book was the religious element as Meroaq was almost a zealot in his faith. However, I actually really liked the religious element and as the book drew on this really expanded and became a core basis for the book. I actually do not have a problem with religion being a core aspect of a book. After all, this was an alien planet and was all about following the word of Sheul. I think the religion aspect actually helped to deepen the world-building that R. Lee Smith crafted for this alien planet and enriched the cultural fabric of the story. I thought this was one of the most well-done elements of the book and really had an interesting story arc.

Overall I thought the book could have been a little bit shorter, tighter and with a little bit of editing to make some of the passages clearer. I did still really enjoy the book and definitely thought it was worth sticking with. I would issue a warning that the book did involve a lot of violence and rape as this is a very visceral and warrior-like world which wasn't always pleasant. However, it did feel realistic of the society and the situations when it happened with raiders and slave culture; this sadly reflected some harsh truths. Would recommend to all of those interested in new colonist/alien/science-fiction romance books.

Warnings: rape (lots of it) & violence.