Doomstar Relic is one of my top ten favorite books in the Outlanders series for a lot of different reasons. We get to see the take Mark Ellis has on the swampies and are treated to the violent and very picturesque assassination of a baron. When flames start shooting out of the pores of your face, you know you've been assassinated in style.

Tara, the holographic assassin with particles of anti-matter mixed in with her energy field suffers from a cybernetic version of a multiple personality disorder and that makes her one of the most fascinating characters to appear in any of the OL novels.

I also liked revisiting the huge Alaskan installation from DL Red Holocaust, known here as Redoubt Zulu. The mystery of what lay behind the cold doors was revealed in Doomstar Relic, not to mention the whole purpose of the redoubt in the first place.

The book also features one of the most vile villains, the Magistrate who would be baron, Barch. He's manipulative and cunning and uses the love of one of Tara's personalities to advance his career. That part of the story was sad, even tragic.

Domi and Brigid team up for the first time in the series, too and their brief "girl to girl" conversation when they're trapped in Redoubt Zulu about what to do about Beth-Li and her designs on Kane was a hoot.

Also, Doomstar Relic has one of the very best covers of the entire series. It's classic Outlanders with a great sci-fi twist.

An outstanding entry in the Outlanders saga, Kane and his friends, hunted by the Barons, try to distract their pursuers by making it look like they have been living in various redoubts, diverting attention away from their true hiding place. It doesn't take long for them to get caught up in another power hungry villain's plans to take over the villes.

The redoubt from Deathlands novel Red Holocaust plays a major role, and the redoubts from Neutron Solstice and Northstar Rising are also represented in this novel.

Barch, the main villain, has discovered a very powerful weapon hidden in the Alaska redoubt, and along with mind control, attempts to bring Kane on his side. A great plot with lots of adventure, character interaction and everything else you could want in a sci-fi novel is here.

I enjoyed this book as much as the first novel in this series, and the writing seemed to flow more smoothly and the story moved along at a brisk pace, the pages just flew by. There are too many great aspects of this novel to list them all, all I can say is Mr. Ellis has a very simple formula with these Outlanders novels: to knock your socks off!!!
A definite ten star book and complete with a great Herring cover, get your paws on this one, it's awesome.

Way back in the beginning of the Deathlands series, the author gave us our first glimps into Zulu Redoubt. An inbred family tried very hard to kill Ryan and his band. Anyhow, there was a locked off section of the redoubt that we were never once allowed to see what was hidden. UNTIL NOW!

The secret that laid dormant for nearly two centuries was awakened by a magistrate and archivist. The end result was the death of a Baron which has never happened before in the history of the villes.

Kane, Grant, Brigid and Domi are sent to investigate the death, and the implications. They discover far more than they ever expected. Yet another mystery left over from the Archon Directive.

The name isn't misleading, but Doomstar isn't what you expect it to be.

And to the author.... I want to see Tara return!

DOOMSTAR RELIC takes hardcore fans back to a redoubt that 'ol Ryan Cawdor visited way back in the day. But Mark Ellis is not afraid to open that door and exploe what's within!
This story didn't meet my expectations, but at the same time, it was still a great read with much character building. This is something that Mark Ellis continues to do onwards into the series.
Mark gave us a villain the likes of we never read before in this universal series.