Like many of the other reviewers, I was extremely disappointed with this book, and I am a fan of both Turtledove and this series. But this was truly a low point. The level of repetition was unbelievable. If that weren't enough - the largest part of this book consisted of completely superfluous scenes that served no purpose other than mere page-fillers. Any sort of reasonable editing would have knocked this book down to 200 pages (max), instead of the bloated 600 published.The writing itself was equally bad - characters were caricatures and the aliens(?) were simply human beings with attitudes in lizard suits. The good doctor didn't even make an attempt to inject any sort of versimilitude to his dialog or characterizations.This was, I am sorry to report - a complete waste of time and money. Definitely not recommended - even for faithful followers of this series.