Separated by a brane from our cosmos (the Rose) lies the Entire, an artificial plenum of strange properties and dimensions, created by the enigmatic inhuman race known as the Tarig. Quinn and his wife Johanna and daughter Sydney were sucked into the Entire accidentally and forced to live there as slaves for many years (while less time passed on Earth, time flows being inconsistent between the universes). Quinn escaped back to our home continuum after wreaking much damage on the Tarig. Unfortunately, he could not rescue Johanna and Sydney. The former is now bedmate to a Tarig Lord named Inweer, in his fortress of Ahnenhoon, while the latter has attained some measure of freedom by bonding with a race of sentient quadrupeds known as the Inyx.

Moreover, Quinn has learned that the Tariq intend to trigger a cosmic implosion of the human universe to fuel their own dying creation. Back on Earth, he is tasked with preventing this horrible fate. He is given a nanotech weapon that will reduce the Tarig implosion engine to sludge. Unfortunately, the engine is located in Inweer's fortress Ahnenhoon. Quinn might very well be dooming his wife and himself as agent of destruction to sludgedom as well.

Sent back to the Entire, Quinn acquires an unwelcome companion: Helice Maki, a headstrong female commando who wants ostensibly only to help on the mission and who has sneaked across the brane interface. But she really has her own secret agenda. Now, disguised as natives, the pair must make their way a vast distance across the Entire without being discovered.

We follow two other narrative tracks as well. Johanna is trying her best to sabotage Inweer's schemes, but at peril of her own life. And Sydney has conceived a hatred of her father—she believes he deliberately abandoned her—and has sent a big mean killer named Mo Ti out to assassinate Dad.

When you add in such dangerous features of the landscape as the River Nigh, "where worlds mixed, dimensions blurred, and futures were probabilities," it will be a miracle if Quinn even comes within sight of his goal, never mind gets inside!

Making the best of what's still around

Kay Kenyon continues to offer some neat adventures for her protagonists in this really alluring offbeat universe she's created. But I did feel that this second volume suffered from the dreaded "middle book of a trilogy" loss of newness and direction, which caused me to downgrade its ranking slightly from the first book's stellar "A." Before carping, however, let's reaffirm what's being done brilliantly right.

First off, all the characters continue to be fascinatingly complex. The Quinn family all suffer mixed allegiances and clashing emotional bonds that create great dramatic tensions. Johanna hates Inweer but also experiences some attraction to certain of his qualities. Titus cherishes his native Earth, but also his adopted Entire. Additionally, having thought Johanna dead, he's fallen in love with a woman named Anzi. Sydney is conflicted over her parental relations. In short, vice and virtue, good and evil, loyalty and treachery become gray areas, providing a very rich stew of emotions.

Also, every minor character is endowed with exceptional depth and reality. Consider the dwarf leader of a "godder convoy," Zhiya, who carries around her mutated mother, seeking restoration of her or at least vengeance on the Tarig. A great supporting role!

Secondly, the artificial universe known as the Entire remains a great conception and playground for adventure. Resonating with the work of Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Silverberg (the Majipoor books) and even Lord Dunsany, this subcreation seems inexhaustible.

But that leads us to my main criticism of this volume.

We see very few new aspects of the Entire. Here's a gigantic canvas, and Kenyon sketches in very little that we haven't seen in volume one. Really, no new cultures, no new Big Dumb Objects, no new landscapes. We shuttle among Inweer's fortress, Sydney's tribe and Quinn's road trip (which really intersects with not much novelty), as well as a couple of other city venues. And that's it. So busy is Kenyon in propelling her admittedly thrilling plot—will Quinn release the nanotech in time or not, and does he even want to?—that she's forgotten to include the promised exoticism.

But I'll certainly be back for the next installment, hoping for more aspects of the Entire to emerge.