River of Night (7) (Black Tide Rising)

The Black Tide Risingseries has been intense, terrifying adventure fantasy. So I was happy to put my eyes on a continuation.

People are attempting to reconstruct on land what Mr. Ringo has had as his original thrust against the “infestation” at sea. Some characters and events are apparently linked to earlier stories in the line. Not having read all of those yet, I found those linkages a tad vague and even, when revisited repeatedly, a drag. This is not a standalone story.

Scene and group shifts were done by having “destination” participants engage in conversation or action, not explicating where or when. Those shifts involved, in many cases, using flashbacks attempting to tell back story of the group shifted to. And while I still confused by trying to flow with the interrupted story, another method became miserably obvious. Too many names, sometimes ranks, nicknames, former names . . .

A couple of younger characters get wounded, and we don’t receive any closure about them. There are good villains. Other characters are superhumanly adept and lucky! Mr. Ringo has never, in my experience, suffered that jerkiness. Mr. Massa has a very impressive background, so I have to attribute this inhibited read to coordination and editing flaws.

If further cooperations are planned, I suggest professional proofing and editing until methodology settles down.