In postapocalyptic earth, the Cerberus rebels fight the forces of alien tyranny over humankind. While the losses are often painful, their victories bring renewed promise. Forging a brave new world from the wreckage of the old, these dedicated warriors won't stop until mankind is once again master of its own destiny on earth.
Kane, Brigid and Grant come to the aid of a race of serpent-human mutants caught up in civil war. Hope for the mutant race lies in an alliance with the advanced people who live in a verdant, secret place deep beneath the shattered islands of Japan. But their subterranean haven is under siege. In a battle to the finish, Kane and the others confront a prehistoric nightmare, retooled and fortified by the deepest mysteries of the Outlands.
Savage Dawn is Doug's 6th Outlander book, only about half the amount that the other author has put out. Seems this Rik is head writer.
This could have been Doug's greatest work. I mean, c'mon! Dinosaurs and cobramen!
It had everything an old-fashioned sci-fi adventure used to deliver, in the same vein as Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar series, (which the author tips his hat to here, and rightfully so! But he spells Pellucidar wrong. Two L's Doug!), the Ceberus team go underground where dinos roam.
The overall set-up was excellent, along with a new badass half-breed warrior who I liked, Remus. (Although I wished a better name was given him.) This book was chock-full of fast-pacing, good storyline set-up, some well orchestrated action sequences with huge dinosaurs. The first half of the book the author was shining brightly. Lots of good stuff here.
It made me realize how Mark Ellis's Thunder Isle was such a cool concept, brimming with numerous stories to tell. Those were some of my all-time favorite OL books.
But, unfortunately for me, the latter half of Savage Dawn kinda fell apart for me. I found myself speed-reading it just to get through. Never a good thing. I hope there is a return of this concept, but with a mighty clash of more dinos and a great 2nd half ending.
This book was very difficult to get into, especially at the beginning. The cobra/lizard people were originally introduced a few books back, but if a person hadn't read that introductory book with these characters, then attempting to understand who these characters were would be somewhat difficult.
For whatever reason, I did not like this book. Maybe it's the author and his writing style. (Most of Doug's books have not been very good, IMO. He is the weak writer in the OL series). Maybe it was the storyline. Maybe it was the fact I couldn't wrap my head around there being another massive world underneath the Earth! The other book reviewer talked about what this storyline was based upon (another book series). I didn't realize it was a parallel to that series. But again, I couldn't wrap my head around an underground world.
Overall, this was an OK but not good book.