Review: Much More Backstory - which is a good thing!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 19, 2014
An excellent followup to the first book in the series, I was very happy to see a lot more in the way of flashbacks in this one. I really enjoy the rich history of this world, and seeing how things were 20, 30, even 50 or 60 years before the events of the "present" in these books really helps to flesh it out.I was especially happy to learn more about Nicolai's past, as he had the exciting adventures in the Wild East before the NAU cut itself off.  Crumb as Stephen York isn't quite as great as Crumb the crazy gatekeeper, but the character certainly has a lot more depth now. It's interesting to see how he got to be the way that he was (again, with the flashbacks.)Hopefully there will be a good number of Beam-world stories to tide us over until the third book gets written.