Operation Antarctica

S-Squad takes on Nazi ice zombies in Antarctica...

Unfortunately, they just aren't as fun as the giant isopods were .. I was expecting them to be intelligent and cool (pun not intended) but they are mostly mindless and never speak. Seems a waste of such a typically evil villain to not have them deliver any lines.

What is fun however is everything else going on this story. You get secret experiments with a “demon” that includes a floating UFO that takes people's consciousness out into the cosmos and a really well-written journal that includes Carnacki's meeting with Winston Churchill. A lot of crazy imaginative stuff is going on in this story, and every time it went back to the S-Squad I couldn't help but feel disappointed. I cared far more about the side stories than them this outing, and that's not a good thing.

The main part, S-Squad vs the Nazi Zombie's was repetitive and pretty boring honestly. They mostly just battle back and forth down a hallway filling in time before we get back the previously mentioned side stories.

They also bring in a few new members to fill in for those who died in the last book, but they are all forgettable except for Wiggins, but that's only because he is extremely annoying. Most of his dialogue is just him making sexual jokes about Hynd's wife. You know, funny the first few times, then frustrating the hundredth time...

Banks, the leader of the squad, and Hynd the second are the main characters basically and are mostly likable just because they are effective at what they do, they don't have much backstory. When the story slowed a little in the first one we saw a little character stuff and personality come out, here it's dominated by again the side stories so that doesn't happen this time.

I need to mention just one more thing before I wrap this up... There's a scene where they, to put it bluntly, have a dance-off to turn back the ritual to draw them further in the base and it was just silly and ridiculous looking in my mind. I enjoyed the getting “Lost in the dance” stuff as a metaphor for what was happening in the cosmos scenes but when you do it literally ... ugh.

So we have a fun, imaginative story, where action and well, everything, takes a backseat to the side stories going on. This weakened the book a bit to me because well, that's what this series is, pew pewing some beasties, or so I thought. Of course, you can add other stuff and I appreciate that it was still an odd choice to me