Death cry... a cry for times past more likely
Although this book was by far a better effort than the last one we had forced upon us, it is still not the classic OL we all came to love and look forward to from the master Mark Ellis.
As run of the mill Sci-fi goes it was a good read, no real thought needed to scan over the pages and no real brain power required to follow the story through. But thats it just RUN OF THE MILL.
All the main characters were so wrong, yeah they all had the right names, all had the same interaction with one another but again that was it..
Kane, Grant and Domi all had an increase of 50 to 70 IQ points to a level that made Lakesh all but a bumbling fool.
Domi although placed in several extreme situations didn't once slip into her outland clipped way of speaking as she always did before.
What happened to the CAT teams ? They are called "Field teams" throughout the book.
Brigid talks of the "Iron curtain" to the Soviets, who still believe it is the late 1920's or early 30's, and they react as if they know exactly what she is talking about. The Iron Curtain was only coined as a phrase by Winston Chirchill in the 1940's !!
As I said above this book is a good read if you want a general sci-fi fix, but if you want a real OL fix then I'm affraid you are going to have to go back to your bookshelf and pick up a previous one written by Mark.
I'm giving this book a 5 / 10 as its the writers first try at OL and the mistakes made are not all his blame. The editors at GE have been reading and checking these books for so many years now they SHOULD know what the characters do, say and act like and they SHOULD know when certain things will be picked up by the series long time readers if not corrected.