I love John Meaney's way with ideas and lanuguage; I always approach a new Meaney book with anticipation of a towering story, fascinating characters, lots and lots of suspense, and confidence that I'm in good hands; eventually, every thread in the web in which he's snagged the reader is going to be recognized as part of an exciting and ultimately satisying larger pattern.
Ragnarok is more than a web--it's a tapestry with designs so engaging that I forget to see the individual threads Meaney uses to construct it. Two volumes in, it's a work of amazing craftsmanship that I suspect I may only fully recognize it when I've finally turned the last page of the last book.
How will a young berserker from the 7th century AD, a physicist from the mid-20th century and her 21st centuy grandson, a 27th century Pilot and his Ship, a young Seeker with no memory from our far future, and a host of other captivating characters play their parts in a battle to keep all of spacetime from being subsumed by a ravening Darkness that devours millions of minds at a time? Certainly there are few answers in this second volume, and none that are not woven into even bigger questions. What there is is lots of good writing and storytelling and character development and forward motion that will have me queueing up for the next volume.
I'm a little disappointed there's no US Kindle edition of either this or the previous volume. Gollancz should get on that.