Heretics

Heretics, Apotheosis: Book Two is the 2nd in S. Andrew Swann's space opera trilogy. I'm finding these books fascinating and a lot of fun. My main complaint is that the author seems to feel we need an in-depth review of book 1 to start us off. I wish he'd stuck in a review chapter as a prelude, and I could've skipped that part.

from the back of the book:

Nearly two hundred years after the collapse of the Confederacy -the last government to claim sovereignty over all of humanity's far-flung interstellar colonies- forces ranging from the Eridani Caliphate to the Roman Catholic Church to the alien-created AI named Mosasa are jockeying for control. So when strange transmissions are received from beyond the fringes of human space, the race is on to get there first.

As Heretics opens, all hell is about to break loose. Mosasa has been destroyed by Adam -another of the surviving alien AIs. And Adam is about to launch a plan of conquest that has been centuries in the making. If he succeeds, he will rule all humankind -all sentient life-forms- as a God.

Only a few know the truth about Adam's plans and how deeply he has stretched his forces across the galaxy. And even with the aid of some unexpected allies. does the human race have any hope of defeating this seemingly omnipresent and omniscient entity...?

SF Revu calls it "unpredictable, enjoyable, and hard to put down". SF Signal says it's "outstanding".