** spoiler alert ** 
 I enjoyed this sequel to The Lost Gate, I found it mostly exciting and interesting. I like Danny but often find his storyline lacking. I'd like more of Wad, evil and hard to relate with as he is. 
 I did not like Danny's high school pals. They were very one dimensional and often felt like placeholders. Many times I found myself mixing them up and then realizing it didn't matter that much. Danny being in high school at all after he made a Great Gate seemed ridiculous. I just didn't find it believable that after creating the first Great Gate in centuries and learning about an evil foe that Danny still had a pressing need to attend track practice. 
 The fawning girls. Ug. If it had just been boob girl or zit girl or piercing girl (because that's honestly how I keep them straight now, come on Card, work on that), it might have been okay. But all of them? ( did cleavage teen hit on him? I remember her being very put out that he never referenced the ladies anymore). It was like a crappy soft porn with all of the throwing themselves on him. 
 Anonoei and Bexoi were much better female characters, and I look forward to their drama playing out. I'm also crossing my fingers for more of the boys, because they seemed like interesting characters themselves. 
 The book got bogged down at times with 
 all the explaining. Card did the same thing in Pathfinder so I knew that once I'd read the basics once it was okay to skim a bit, but if you're new to the OSC repetition it might be a bit boring. 
 There were times when the characters lost their voices and became interchangeable. This was most noticeable with the high school crowd but leaked into the other characters as well. At one point Wad says "or whatever" to a monk in Egypt during Jesus' time. It pulled me out of the story which was unfortunate because that was one of the better parts of the story. 
 I'm anxiously awaiting the last volume in this series, I hope these silly high schoolers have more of purpose in it.