Going back to Sinan will dredge up painful memories because Stake once served in the Colonial Forces during a war with the Sinan people over natural resources. His ambivalence is further fueled because he still hasn't recovered from a brief long-ago love affair with an enemy sniper named Thi Gonh. Still, Stake decides to say yes to Henderson. Once on Sinan, Stake has an inexplicable fling with hermaphrodite Ami Pattaya, one of the top scientists on the Colonial Forces military base. S/he is intimately involved in analyzing the clones and may have her own agenda. Stake then meets Thi Gonh and becomes invested in getting her to leave her abusive husband.

Meanwhile, Bluetown continues to grow, becoming creepier and creepier. If Stake—aided by his partially controllable chameleon ability to morph his face into other people's features—can't help solve the mystery behind Bluetown, the empty metropolis will eventually take over the planet. Caught up in a complex, sometimes confusing case, Stake has to navigate through a myriad of dangers that might just get him killed before he can prevent another war.

Unconvincing female characters

The city of Punktown may be Jeffrey Thomas' most amazing creation, spawning multiple stories and novels, many of them fascinating. Blue War has some of Thomas' wonderful mad invention and romanticism, but also a muddled focus that distracts from the wonderful weirdness of elements like Bluetown. For example, every time the novel shifts back to Punktown from Sinan, the tension diffuses like a pricked balloon. It's not always entirely clear why Stake has to go back to Punktown, either. Much of what he does there includes calling up people on videophones.

Stake does, of course, have his charms as a character, including his connection to a lineage going back to every hardboiled detective in the history of literature. However, his relationship with Thi Gonh not only isn't convincing as written, it takes up too much space in the novel. The fragmented English spoken by the Vietnamese-like Gonh includes lines like "Sometimes his milk come out before his baby go inside my baby" (in discussing her horrible husband). It also stretches the imagination that Gonh, a celebrated and deadly sniper, would be as simple as portrayed by Thomas. Worse, the reader doesn't believe for a moment that Gonh would allow her husband to abuse her. A similar problem dogs the portrait of the scientist Pattaya, who addresses everyone as "cutie" and in general gives the reader no indication she is anything other than a bubblehead. The effect of these decisions is to slow down a novel that needs speed and action to be fully successful.

When Stake focuses on the case at hand, Blue War does reward the patient reader. The evocation of a rapidly growing, empty city that mimics Punktown is often haunting, the ultimate resolution of the mystery behind both the city and the clones for the most part satisfying. However, the most evocative parts of the novel have to do with Thomas' made-up creatures, from "yubos" to "benders." Benders are a little like huge floating jellyfish, and they help showcase the author's truly impressive imagination. A scene in which Stake is attacked by a bender has an authenticity of detail rare in science fiction.

Ultimately, then, Blue War is a frustrating combination of the clunky and the interesting, advancing the Punktown mythos in satisfying ways but never completely coming together as a novel.