Agreed. This was a thin story for me and my least favorite Glen Cook novel (of any series). Keep in mind that I'm a huge fan . . . but it felt like Glen was simply bored with Garrett. (I read an interview somewhere that suggested that he was continuing the series for purely contractual reasons.) The UFOs struck me as a tired idea, and they interfered constantly with my belief-suspension apparatus. I was fine with Kip conceptually, but his story was executed with no energy at all. Glen has written great books since--notably the Instrumentalies books. The Garrett series might simply be running out of gas, although WNI and CZM were both better than ALS. Anyway, ALS was a low-water mark, for some reason--the only GC novel (excluding the Swap Academy) I've read less than twice. LJ ---- Michael Llaneza <maserati@speakeasy.net> wrote:
If you're going to skip one Garrett book…
You miss a couple of bad running jokes and avoid the hackneyed story of how Garrett hooked up with a boy genius inventor.
No big loss.
-- Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1951