Having thoroughly enjoyed Ringo’s Posleen series as well as his Council Wars series, I had high hopes for this book. The premise is solid; an experiment gone wrong triggers a massive explosion at a Florida University and opens up a portal to another world.

Unfortunately this book is a classic case of an author being unable to get out of his own way and just tell a story. Ringo feeds you his politics with a shovel in this book. About half way through it, I found my self saying, “Okay… Ringo thinks all Liberals are cowardly, un-American scum who should be shot on sight… I get it… Can we get back to the story now?”

In the first half of the book it is difficult to make it ten pages without some wonderful anecdote about the evils of liberalism and the glories of conservatism. Whatever your politics (mine fall squarely in the middle), it gets boring after a while and it makes a potentially good read drown under the weight of the author’s convictions.

Next time I hope we get less screed and more story.

Baen Books