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4.0 out of 5 stars
An epic, ambitious adventure, Mar 20 2001
In my opinion, this book gets off to a shaky start. Hero and Eldin are to do battle with a conspiracy of the Dreamland's most evil forces. But rather than set up the situation with a gradual unfolding of events, Lumley shoves his characters right into it, explaining the full background of the conspiracy in a long letter from Randolph Carter. I found this to be somewhat forced and awkward, it was as if Lumley couldn't be bothered to set up the story in a more natural way.Still, I can forgive him that, because once the weak setup is done, Hero and Eldin are launched into their most sweeping adventure yet. But it's also the corniest adventure yet. All of the old villians are back and united - it reminds me of a silly Batman plot, with the arch-villians banding together to fight the caped crusader, but spend as much time fighting with themselves. Still, it works, as long as you don't take it too seriously. This is the first of the Dreamlands books that introduces some Great Old Ones into the action. As usual with Lumley, he shows them as being far more interested in and susceptible to the affairs of men than Lovecraft ever would have. The HPL purists out there will probably be disappointed or offended. I'm not a purist myself, but I did have problems with some of the Nightgaunts starting to act heroic, on their own, being even a little bit human. Once the action gets started, this is the most ambitious of Lumley's Dreamlands books, with harrowing escapes, battles between large fleets of sky-ships, all the way up to the incredible fate of our heroes at the end of the story. If you're willing to tolerate the absurdity of some of it, and can deal with the liberties Lumley takes with some of HPL's creations, it's a fun ride.
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