** spoiler alert ** I have to give it 3 stars for complexity, pace and new ideas. But this book isn't as good as the first. It seems as if the author is making it up as he goes along, and inventing new stuff as required to keep the plot moving.

As with the first book, almost every move is telegraphed. We are never surprised that a character isn't what he/she seems to be because broad hints are always provided.

+1 to this book for not having as many implausible coincidences, such as having Hannes, lost in the mountains, stumble right into Creston's back yard. Creston, right, the guy who lives as a recluse until everyone who knew him is gone, then reappears in rags to say, "Yo, I'm here to captain the super-ship" and everyone says, "hey, Cres, dude, you da man."

+1 for having crazy-for-power religious people on one side, a crazy-with-fervor priest on the other.

+1 for not having ALL the heroes escape unscathed no matter what happens.

-1 for the fact that magic is rarely mentioned, except suddenly when it's needed because nothing else would advance the plot.
We have sympathetic magic that works at a distance. A model of an object reflects changes to the object, and this seems to be common but no one has ever thought to use it for anything else. A torn notebook can be used like a fax machine over apparently-infinite distances, but no one has ever thought to use it for anything except as a walkie-talkie for travelling priestesses. In a world with Dalicar (who is clearly C.M.O.T. Dibbler from Discworld) someone would have found a military or commercial application.

Sailing, sailing, dum de dum de dum - oh, look, here's God's body. Not to worry, his wife can un-age and is a mighty wizard, although I'd have thought that his powers would let her just make a new ship instead of plugging holes with starfish. Never mind, let's piss her off and flee. Oops, gosh, look a serpent big enough to circle the world, although its head is small enough to swoop down and check us out.

Let's repeat countless times that mammoths can't be tamed and there's nothing for them to eat, then let's march them across a mountain range (hello, Hannibal!), have them go exactly where we want them, then repeat that they are still hungry and have to go back into the mountains where the food isn't.

We have just too many repeats of the plot line in which we see that X is a wonderful, kind and intelligent person, but gosh those other guys are so mean that X has no choice but to out-mean them. Once would have been enough, maybe twice.

Oh, and it's an adventure, so let's have enough slaughter to fill up a video game.

Ah. I see now. This is a book for the video game crowd. Lots of action, and don't look to closely at the plot.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing, either. This isn't a book for the ages, it's a story.

Overall, I disliked this book, but I'll probably STILL read the third one just to see how it ends.

To write more than 100 novels in less than 50 years of life, probably 30 years of writing, you have to write quickly.
Isaac Asimov could do it without the haste showing. KA can't quite.
I hope KA finds time along the way to take his time and write a one-volume corker; I think it would be terrific.