This book left me with mixed feelings. Some parts of it I really liked and others really rubbed me the wrong way. I found the world that Ms. Morgan created in this book to be interesting. The concept of another dimension separated from ours by a barrier that shifts with seismic activity along fault-lines was pretty nifty. The idea of “Others” on the far side of this dimensional rift having a darker soul due to both lack of physical as well as moral light…ok I can dig it. Paladin warriors who could regenerate more quickly and even come back from the dead; but whose self-same abilities were slowly bringing them over to the “dark side” and would one day make them crazed killing machines. Ok, check.
The characterization was a mixed bag, filled with some memorable secondary characters as well as abusing some tropes in our main leads. Dr. Laurel Young, our main female lead, is a smart doc in charge of the Paladin’s welfare should they get banged-up or dead...m’kay this one I liked in theory, but on read-through you had a split personality going on here…smart and savvy doc by day and sexual deviant by night who gives over all judgment to strong man. Grunt. Yeah, not so much on that one. The secondary characters in this book were really very good; and if I do decide to pick up another book in this series, it will be because I want to find out what happens to them.
My biggest problem, I think, was the internal structure of how this world interaction was set up. You had the Paladins, the Research branch with the doc and then you had the Ordnance, which seemed to be made up of the human “guards” who sometimes helped fight the “Others” from the far side of the barrier and also comprised those who guarded those of the research branch from the Paladins. This whole thing made me irritated. Could be because I am not one for military drama, could also be that I don’t understand why this hierarchy exists as it does, or it could be that the head of Ordnance was an ass-hat and one of the lackeys a bad-guy. Either way; the structure of the command in this book was a no-go for me almost to the point that I stopped reading. I am glad I finished, as the twists Ms. Morgan created with Barak, one of the “Others,” being honorable (and in truth far more honorable than the human who was bat-shit crazy and doing bad things), and the possible salvation of the Paladins honor and sanity made me glad to have read this story. My only other loud negative was the epilogue. It pissed me off. The author couldn’t just have a happy ending; no she had to manufacture a cliff-hanger and tension to try to drum up interest in reading the next book. I’m sorry, but if by the end of the book I don’t like it well enough to give the next one a try, an epilogue is probably not going to convince me, and if I did like it well enough, than such an epilogue I find irritating.
All in all I give this book three stars
I may pick up the next book in this series.
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