Well where to start, hmm as a novel it is well written and on the whole is faithful to the characters. I found the story entertaining and easy to read. As a Blakes 7 story it would have fitted well amongst those broadcasts.
Unfortunately as an interlocker between Star One & Aftermath it fails due to a number of errors that are frankly large enough to fly the Liberator through.
First of all we see at the end of the Novel that the entire crew of the Liberator see Star One destroyed, however in Aftermath Serverlan tell Avon that fact as if he wouldn’t know it and he reacts accordingly. Now surely she would realize Avon knew and he would not react as if he didn’t?
We also find out in Aftermath that the Federation had destroyed between 500 & 600 ships. In the book 317 are destroyed in the blast and only a few alien ships remain. This is too great a variant to be ‘most o0f the alien fleet’.
We are also told in Aftermath that 80% of the Federation fleet has been destroyed in the book it is 60%, again this is too great an error for the difference to be accounted by a few alien ships escaping the blast.
Now in the book the Liberator has been fighting for several hours before a group of civilian ships arrive to help. What happened to the Federation Battleship Newton estimated time of arrival at Star One 1 hour 7 minutes? And the Fourth Flotilla estimated time to arrival 2 hours 7 minutes?
Again these are just too many errors with the show and the book for it to be bridging the gap between the two series.
And the final straw (not even touching the combat on Planets and wide ranging fighting indicated in the latter two series), we have Blake signalling in Aftermath that he is uninjured, yet in the book he is still recovering when he entered the life capsule.
So as a novel 8 out of 10 as the interlock between Star One & Aftermath 2 out of 10
vidarraven 