I quite liked having the epilogue. It felt like a natural follow-through for the rest of the book, just the sort of coda that wraps things in a tidy package.

But then, I didn't feel like it was a cliffhanger either. While it promises future events that we can't yet witness, for me a cliffhanger has a requirement that the next few moments could easily go different ways. The fact that we are provided with signs of life, and immediate access to life-preserving technology of a superior nature, says to me that the short-term outcome is not in doubt. Rescue had (unexpectedly) arrived.