Luke Romyn

Beyond Hades

Imagine your twin brother, whom you have spent most of your life avoiding, had opened the gate to hell. Well, Indiana Jones is fiction and Archaeologist are not all flash and muscle. Talbot, the main character is more of the brains type of archaeologist. All of the creatures that are linked to hell, which is really Tartarus, are focused on Talbot, and he can't figure out why. He does know that the humans are all focused on him because he is the only human on earth that can open the portal. Which means that he is the only one than can go in and force the portal to close again from the other side. Sacrifices must be made to keep him alive, at all costs, in all dimensions. Devastation follows Talbot where ever he goes. The creatures attack and people close to him tend to die. Many are not who they seem,  and this is all before even going into the portal. So, to not ruin all the fun of the book, that are several fun scenes in the book that take A LOT of imagination and there is a lot of different aspects of sci-fi included in this book, but some parts are best left to the reader. I can say that Talbot and a not so sane guide travel through Mt Olympus, Hades, Tartarus and back. Every time they turn around there is another creature of some sort either trying to gain their trust, or kill them. There's also the tiny matter of surviving a war before trying to get back to the portal...which by the way is in a self destruct count down while they are doing all of this running around. Can they make it in time???

I enjoyed watching Talbot process the information as quickly as he could, but not quite quickly enough in some instances. It leaves for a lot of great action and adventures though. Wes is the name of the not so sane character that travels with Talbot to the other side of the portal, and as I read the story, I couldn't but wonder if there will be a book two that tell us more about Wes, because there are some things about Wes that pop up in the story that never get fully explained.

Jamie K