After the courtly intrigue of the Conclave in volume three, climaxing with the stately, and naturally bloody and brutal, formal duel, it's all-out war in volume four, opening with desperate espionage and the specter of an engineered plague, then moving on to the fight for the strategically vital city of Duluth and the equally desperate fight for the life of Malcolm Carlyle, poisoned by the vile Doctor Hock. Casey Solomon is now a Corporal with the Carlyle forces, despatched with Carlyle Lazarus, Forever, on a desperate mission. Forever is an engineered super-soldier who has died and been revived many times, but in a battlefield a single bullet can take out even her.

Micheal Lark shines as always, but the scenes of snow-bound grunt-level near-future combat are extraordinary, tough and gritty, but smooth and conveyed with amazing clarity and precision, the desperate grind of ordinary troops contrasted with the amazing fluidity of the Lazari. The series and the world continues to grow and the massive power-struggled of the super-elite grinds everyone else into the ground.