I had gotten bored with the Deathlands series in the past few years and fell behind in reading them. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Savage Armada, and found myself eager to read this next chapter in the Skydark Chronicles.

The book actually contains two distinct plotlines which only intersect indirectly; in the main plot, the companions' hopes of using the gateway they arrived in are dashed, and so they must search out another possible way out of the Marshall islands. In the secondary plot, Lord Baron Kinneson faces a "Judas Strike", or coup.

The action in this book is both varied and exciting. Alliances are struck and betrayed, and the pace rarely slows at all. I found myself actually engrossed in the book, something that frequently happens with the Outlanders novels but is a real rarity for Deathlands.

Like most second parts in a trilogy, this novel really only served as a connective thread between the first and the third. Even so, it is a fun ride to a great cliffhanger. Deathlands is definitely looking up.

Another good story trashed by a lack of research, and the edition of Sci-Fake, and Sci-Foolish things. Here are a few complaints about the low quality, and errors in roughly the order they cam up in the book. The crabs with two scorpion tails were so dumb that I almost tossed this book aside. Crabs don't cocoon their food. If you fire an auto loading pistol while it is in a holster it will jam when it tries to eject the brass from the first round. We are expected to believe that when Ryan can hardly walk he is still able to stomp on a dead crab and grind it into the sand. On page 71 it is said that the bombs that killed off the population during the nukecast were the "so-called clean nukes that the Pentagon was so proud of developing". Are we expected to believe that the U.S. nuked its own base ? Dean's Browning Hi-Power fires 9mm not .38 as we are told on page 79. Salutes are done with the right hand not left. Again we find the group trapped in another isolated society that has had little or no contact with the rest of the world yet this societies English has evolved the same slang as the rest of Deathlands. The Sea Mutie was stupid. M-16s don't have fluted barrels (I bet the author has no idea what a fluted barrel is). On page 220 there is another example of GE not caring enough to invest in a proof reader. "Suddenly, Kinnison not could wait another second..." Pages 225-226 Jak is said to have seen his swamp turn into desert but Jak was not with the group when they found his swamp had turned to a desert. The sec droid that is mentioned on page 239 chased Ryan and Dean not Ryan and J.B. in [i]Moon Fate[/i]. Page 276 Krysty is aid to have the best night vision but it is really Jak that has the best night vision. Page 340 a full clip for a Browning Hi-Power is said to be 9 rounds but it is in fact 13 rounds. That was just a few of the stupid mistakes and stupid Sci-Fake things we have to suffer through reading this book. This book could have easily been a 9, but it gets a 3.

I have to rate all 3 of this trilogy at the same time. The idea of using the Marshall Islands as a backdrop was excellent, but I thought there were too many loose ends. For example, the muties with the forked tongues.....who the hell were they? Unless they were in a book I havent read yet, I was left wondering what thier deal was. Also, the Constitution, not the Constellation was the last commissioned sailing ship in the Navy.

At times, this whole series seems to drag itself down into a quagmire of details that slow the flow of the story. While I enjoy reading about blowing things up and killing muties, I really dont want to read every detail of every step and every drop of blood or body part that the companions remove with high velocity rounds. The story had potential, but was beaten into submission with details.

Though not as good as Savage Armada, Nick gives us Part 2 of this ongoing adventure on the high seas tale, and its still a very fun and action-packed read.
A must read for die-hard Deathlands fans.