Villians

Riftworld #2

by Bill McCay

When a dimensional Rift opens and twenty-foot-tall giants invade New York City, the large and belligerent newcomers engage in a battle to eliminate John Cameron, the young artist who alone knows how to manipulate the Rift. Original.

Genres: Science Fiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Under a variety of pseudonyms as well as his own name, Bill McCay is the author of more than seventy books, including such series as the Race Against Time, The Three Investigators, Young Indiana Jones, and Tom Clancy's Net Force. He has also worked with Stan Lee on Riftworld, a science fiction comedy-adventure set in the comics business. McCay has also written five novels based on the film Stargate. His fantasy short fiction has appeared in several anthologies and his Star Trek novel Chains of Command (cowritten with E. L. Flood) spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

See also William McCay

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An OK read. I expected more from the mind of Stan Lee the comic genius. Recommended

[Brent Ecenbarger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably 25 years after reading the first book in this series, I’ve decided to finish up this trilogy. My reread of book one of the trilogy was enjoyable, but it was tough to tell if that was entirely nostalgia driven or not. Book two picks up where book one ends, with the giant heroes conniving in New York and Stan Lee analogue Harry Sturdley not realizing the danger he’s made for his planet. (This part of a bit frustrating, as the last chapter in Riftworld: Crossover should have provided him with enough reason to doubt the giants, and early in this book Sturdley shows contempt for John Cameron warning about the giants true motives.)

The inside baseball of the comics industry gets some more winks and nods in this one, particularly in a San Diego Comic Con section. **Slight spoilers follow** The plot gets thrown into high gear when an assassination attempt on John Cameron takes place and John, Harry and Peg (think Christina Hendricks in Mad Men) escape through a void and end up on the giants home planet. The group gets separated and Peg and Harry must survive the rapey humans of the planet as well as the giant Masters. (I mention that they are rapey, because pretty much every page that involves Peg in this book has somebody wanting to impregnate her or trying to forcefully have sex with her. It might be a deal breaker for a lot of readers.)

The pace and execution of this trilogy is reminded me of Frederik Pohl’s Eschaton Sequence trilogy. With both trilogies, I loved the idea of the first book and the scope of the story. The Eschaton Sequence trilogy kept the story very tight, following the same characters around and ended up feeling much safer and smaller than I was hoping for when finishing the first book. At 2/3 of the way through this story, there’s been some missed opportunity to make this story kick into gear. The tone is also uneven, with the sexual violence and gunfire obviously geared toward adults, but the language and consensual sex moments feeling much more aimed at a teen or young adult audience. The overall feel is low stakes, with no worry that John, Peg or Harry are in danger in this story.

I suspect this was initially planned to be more than a trilogy, as the solicitation at the end of this book is for a sequel called Riftworld: Heroes which (according to Goodreads) was never released. The third book is instead called Riftworld: Odyssey which looks about twice as thick as either of the prior books in the series. I’m hoping that the extra length allows a satisfying conclusion to this series, as the last few pages of this book leave the door open for more of the large scope the series promised at the beginning.

[bluetyson]

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