Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsLizards and Lemurs and Humans, Oh My!
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2015
Don’t be misled into buying duplicate volumes! It is important to realize that the book clubs have picked up on this popular series and are issuing the successive volumes in double volumes. You can get these on the secondary book market, either here on Amazon or on EBay.
1. Unknown Seas: combines v. 1 & 2
2. Fire on the Water: combines v. 3 & 4
3. Rising Storm: combines v. 5 & 6.
4. Iron and Fire: Combines v. 7 & 8.
The first four volumes are pretty much concentrated on one major confrontation, but by volume 5, Rising Tides, the story begins to splinter into several battlefronts, and we begin to lose many of the secondary characters near and dear to our hero: Matt Reddy.
In case you are new to this wonderful alternate universe series, here are the books in order, both of publication (roughly one per year) and sequence.
1. Into the Storm First two volumes have been combined into one physical volume available used (Unknown Seas)
2. Crusade
3. Maelstrom
4. Distant Thunders
5. Rising Tides
6. Firestorm: More ships come through the squall
7. Iron Gray Sea: Finally Reddy marries Sandra
8. Storm Surge
9. Deadly Shores
10. Straits of Hell
We begin with the alternate universe concept. During WWII, in the Pacific Theatre, several ships are involved in a naval battle when a violent storm whips them into an alternative universe. There are three competing species, lemurs, reptiles, and humans. All are sentient and competing species with an uneasy alliance between the Lemurians and the humans.
The story line holds together for the first four volumes. But by the fifth volume, the story has split into so many parts that you will have difficulty following them, if you wait each year for the newest volume. One reviewer noted that it could be solved by splitting the stories into totally separate volumes. This is what Eric Flint has done with his series, to great success.
As it is, those of us who came into the beginning of the series, say in the first three volumes, such as myself may find you have to re-reading the series before progressing further.
