The only reason that I finished reading the book was just out of morbid curiosity. I kept telling myself that it had to get better; it had to come together somehow, somewhere - - But... sadly it never did. The book jumped around without any congruity to the storyline. The characters were poorly developed, hard to identify with, and hard to keep apart from each other. Some of the characters tended to bleed over into each other making it difficult to know who was who. Couple this with a disjointed storyline and you have the makings of a complete dud!. This is the first book that I have read by Jeff Long, so I will not totally rule him out - - - just yet. Everyone gets a second chance. Hopefully "Year Zero" will be a better read. It at least sounds interesting; but then again, so did Descent.