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The Secret World Chronicles #5
Avalanche
From New York Times best-seller and science fiction and fantasy mistress of adventure Mercedes Lackey, Book #5 in the pulse-pounding SECRET WORLD saga of modern-day humans with superpowers.
Ultima Thule has been destroyed—but somehow the Thulians mounted an even bigger force to destroy Metis. The Metisians that escaped the carnage and destruction of their secret city now must somehow find somewhere safe to go—without getting snapped up by various world governments. And now the Thulians have changed their tactics to “blitz guerilla warfar,” sending wave after wave of their ships and troops to attack vulnerable targets all over Earth, with no clue for ECHO as to where these things are coming from. John Murdock and The Seraphym have become a force of nature, but they can’t be everywhere at once, and if they were regarded with suspicion before, now they are regarded by ECHO’s allies with fear as well.
You could say “things can’t get worse.”
You would be wrong.
Red Djinni’s past is about to catch up with him.
So is Victoria Victrix’s.
The heroes of ECHO and CCCP have to save the world. But first, they have to save each other. And the avalanche has begun.
About World Divided, Book 2 in the Secret World Chronicle:
"[C]omes together seamlessly. . .an awesome and lightning-paced story: read it on a day when you will not have to put it down."–San Francisco Book Review
About Mercedes Lackey:
"With [Mercedes Lackey], suspense never lags..." –Kliatt
The Secret World Chronicle
Invasion
World Divided
Revolution
Collision
Mercedes Lackey is the New York Times best-selling author of the Bardic Voices series and the Serrated Edge series (both Baen), the Heralds of Valdemar series, and many more. She's the coauthor of the contemporary meta-hero SF series The Secret World Chronicle. Among her popular Baen titles are The Fire Rose, The Lark and the Wren, and also The Shadow of the Lion and Burdens of the Deadwith Eric Flint and Dave Freer. She lives in Oklahoma.
Cody Martin is a coauthor with Mercedes Lackey of three other books in the metahero saga, The Secret World Chronicle including entries Invasion, World Divided, Revolution, and Collision. He is an avid gamer, but spends his extra time chained to a computer, writing. Originally from Scottsdale, Arizona, he currently resides in Florida.
Dennis Lee was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in Canada. He has a degree in pharmacology and is a cell biologist when not writing.
Veronica Giguere started off as the voice artist for the Secret World Chronicle podcasts then quickly proved her writing chops and was taken on as a series coauthor. Veronica remains active as a voice talent. An educator with a background in mathematics and ocean engineering, she has lent her voice to various research and campus promotional endeavors. She makes her home in Florida.
Ultima Thule has been destroyed—but somehow the Thulians mounted an even bigger force to destroy Metis. The Metisians that escaped the carnage and destruction of their secret city now must somehow find somewhere safe to go—without getting snapped up by various world governments. And now the Thulians have changed their tactics to “blitz guerilla warfar,” sending wave after wave of their ships and troops to attack vulnerable targets all over Earth, with no clue for ECHO as to where these things are coming from. John Murdock and The Seraphym have become a force of nature, but they can’t be everywhere at once, and if they were regarded with suspicion before, now they are regarded by ECHO’s allies with fear as well.
You could say “things can’t get worse.”
You would be wrong.
Red Djinni’s past is about to catch up with him.
So is Victoria Victrix’s.
The heroes of ECHO and CCCP have to save the world. But first, they have to save each other. And the avalanche has begun.
About World Divided, Book 2 in the Secret World Chronicle:
"[C]omes together seamlessly. . .an awesome and lightning-paced story: read it on a day when you will not have to put it down."–San Francisco Book Review
About Mercedes Lackey:
"With [Mercedes Lackey], suspense never lags..." –Kliatt
The Secret World Chronicle
Invasion
World Divided
Revolution
Collision
Mercedes Lackey is the New York Times best-selling author of the Bardic Voices series and the Serrated Edge series (both Baen), the Heralds of Valdemar series, and many more. She's the coauthor of the contemporary meta-hero SF series The Secret World Chronicle. Among her popular Baen titles are The Fire Rose, The Lark and the Wren, and also The Shadow of the Lion and Burdens of the Deadwith Eric Flint and Dave Freer. She lives in Oklahoma.
Cody Martin is a coauthor with Mercedes Lackey of three other books in the metahero saga, The Secret World Chronicle including entries Invasion, World Divided, Revolution, and Collision. He is an avid gamer, but spends his extra time chained to a computer, writing. Originally from Scottsdale, Arizona, he currently resides in Florida.
Dennis Lee was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in Canada. He has a degree in pharmacology and is a cell biologist when not writing.
Veronica Giguere started off as the voice artist for the Secret World Chronicle podcasts then quickly proved her writing chops and was taken on as a series coauthor. Veronica remains active as a voice talent. An educator with a background in mathematics and ocean engineering, she has lent her voice to various research and campus promotional endeavors. She makes her home in Florida.
781 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 7, 2018
13 people are currently reading
182 people want to read
About the author
Mercedes Lackey
432 books9,554 followersMercedes entered this world on June 24, 1950, in Chicago, had a normal childhood and graduated from Purdue University in 1972. During the late 70's she worked as an artist's model and then went into the computer programming field, ending up with American Airlines in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to her fantasy writing, she has written lyrics for and recorded nearly fifty songs for Firebird Arts & Music, a small recording company specializing in science fiction folk music.
"I'm a storyteller; that's what I see as 'my job'. My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of 'story pill' -- they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the 'folk music' of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not.
"I began writing out of boredom; I continue out of addiction. I can't 'not' write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a 'high-tech' science fiction writer. I apply the principle of TANSTAAFL ['There ain't no such thing as free lunch', credited to Robert Heinlein) to magic, for instance; in my worlds, magic is paid for, and the cost to the magician is frequently a high one. I try to keep my world as solid and real as possible; people deal with stubborn pumps, bugs in the porridge, and love-lives that refuse to become untangled, right along with invading armies and evil magicians. And I try to make all of my characters, even the 'evil magicians,' something more than flat stereotypes. Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes.
"I suppose that in everything I write I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in Burning Water:
"There's no such thing as 'one, true way'; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good -- they're the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race."
Also writes as Misty Lackey
Author's website
"I'm a storyteller; that's what I see as 'my job'. My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of 'story pill' -- they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the 'folk music' of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not.
"I began writing out of boredom; I continue out of addiction. I can't 'not' write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a 'high-tech' science fiction writer. I apply the principle of TANSTAAFL ['There ain't no such thing as free lunch', credited to Robert Heinlein) to magic, for instance; in my worlds, magic is paid for, and the cost to the magician is frequently a high one. I try to keep my world as solid and real as possible; people deal with stubborn pumps, bugs in the porridge, and love-lives that refuse to become untangled, right along with invading armies and evil magicians. And I try to make all of my characters, even the 'evil magicians,' something more than flat stereotypes. Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes.
"I suppose that in everything I write I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in Burning Water:
"There's no such thing as 'one, true way'; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good -- they're the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race."
Also writes as Misty Lackey
Author's website
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 12, 2021
Nice last book in this podcast superhero series. Very nice tie up for all the plot lines. Recommended
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July 31, 2019I read all the other books in the series, but I cannot get through this one. I only made it 127 pages in, so I will not be giving it a starred review. Perhaps things even out later on, but I just can't stick with it to find out.
November 4, 2019
Avalanche brings the secret world Chronicles to an end with even less continuity editing than previous books.
The overall story is okay, with get drama interpersonal problems and resolutions. We get good guys and bad guys and even an epic fight against overwhelming odds. What we don't get is the sense of impending danger. I don't mean doubting they will win, we know they will, we want then to win, but in a story of heroes and grand gestures, there should be great sacrifices, and that just isn't them. Don't bother pointing at the places where the writers try to trick us into thinking people are making sacrifices, if you've read the whole book, you know they didn't.
A writer's job is to make me worry about the characters when they are kidnapped, I shou.d fear for the consequences, and that should be even more true in a book with a cast of dozens. Anyone should be at risk, since there are other characters to pick up the narration. So why is that nowhere in a book written by masters of their craft?
This book, more than the others in the series, feels like someone was rummaging in a box is stories miss Lackey wrote with some friend to have fun, and decided to publish it without running it by an editor first. Writers can write stories like this, but it's a publisher's job the ensure we don't end up reading a first draft of a story.
The overall story is okay, with get drama interpersonal problems and resolutions. We get good guys and bad guys and even an epic fight against overwhelming odds. What we don't get is the sense of impending danger. I don't mean doubting they will win, we know they will, we want then to win, but in a story of heroes and grand gestures, there should be great sacrifices, and that just isn't them. Don't bother pointing at the places where the writers try to trick us into thinking people are making sacrifices, if you've read the whole book, you know they didn't.
A writer's job is to make me worry about the characters when they are kidnapped, I shou.d fear for the consequences, and that should be even more true in a book with a cast of dozens. Anyone should be at risk, since there are other characters to pick up the narration. So why is that nowhere in a book written by masters of their craft?
This book, more than the others in the series, feels like someone was rummaging in a box is stories miss Lackey wrote with some friend to have fun, and decided to publish it without running it by an editor first. Writers can write stories like this, but it's a publisher's job the ensure we don't end up reading a first draft of a story.
August 23, 2018
Mildly disappointing ending to the series. Only recommend to those who want to finish the series (who won't need a review anyway).
There was a long hiatus between vol 4 and 5, and I think that the reason was that the superheroic series didn't do that well for Baen, despite Lackey's name. I wouldn't be surprised if they agreed to publish for her only because it was the last.
There's also a couple of edit/continuity errors that you usually don't see in those mass-market books. The genre of shape-shifting Doppelgänger notably is an issue: some author pairings used the original one, some author pairing used the assumed one.
The full climax is also cheapened by the last sequence, which is clearly a fan service to characters that they couldn't let go. Overall, the writing is as good as you expect - technically - but the book feels less than the previous ones.
There was a long hiatus between vol 4 and 5, and I think that the reason was that the superheroic series didn't do that well for Baen, despite Lackey's name. I wouldn't be surprised if they agreed to publish for her only because it was the last.
There's also a couple of edit/continuity errors that you usually don't see in those mass-market books. The genre of shape-shifting Doppelgänger notably is an issue: some author pairings used the original one, some author pairing used the assumed one.
The full climax is also cheapened by the last sequence, which is clearly a fan service to characters that they couldn't let go. Overall, the writing is as good as you expect - technically - but the book feels less than the previous ones.
May 7, 2021
This was a great ending to this series - that's if it really is the ending, as it was left open for more, despite this particular plotline finishing.
I loved this book, and the complete series, as it was such a complex blending of different authors' work, that fit together so seamlessly.
There were some twists and turns that totally surprised me, while other things came out in ways I'd guessed they would, so the whole thing stayed entertaining for me, much to my surprise, given that the books were war stories.
I enjoyed them enough, that they'll be taking up permanent residency on my bookshelves - which, considering how little room I have left, is a surprise to me, too - but I figure that the books are complex enough, that rereading them will bring me things that I missed in this first read - and that's always a good thing in a book!
A great ending, to a great series!
I loved this book, and the complete series, as it was such a complex blending of different authors' work, that fit together so seamlessly.
There were some twists and turns that totally surprised me, while other things came out in ways I'd guessed they would, so the whole thing stayed entertaining for me, much to my surprise, given that the books were war stories.
I enjoyed them enough, that they'll be taking up permanent residency on my bookshelves - which, considering how little room I have left, is a surprise to me, too - but I figure that the books are complex enough, that rereading them will bring me things that I missed in this first read - and that's always a good thing in a book!
A great ending, to a great series!
August 3, 2018
It's always weird when you discover a series starting with the last book.
It was awesome and powerful.
I had some catch up to do but I loved the evolution of the characters.
I will get the previous instalments as I loved them. I also hope in further developments in the saga.
Highly recommended!
It was awesome and powerful.
I had some catch up to do but I loved the evolution of the characters.
I will get the previous instalments as I loved them. I also hope in further developments in the saga.
Highly recommended!
October 30, 2024
This book tied up the scope of the story well
Overall enjoyable but there were too many characters we got to experience the story with and from their view points and some characters didn't get much development or were forgotten about.
Overall enjoyable but there were too many characters we got to experience the story with and from their view points and some characters didn't get much development or were forgotten about.
January 2, 2019
"sprawling" is the nice word, also some total what the hell at the end.
June 1, 2019
The way Superhero novels should be done.
I think this is the final volume in this series. If so, it was a great way to end it.
If not, I really look forward to reading the next one.
I think this is the final volume in this series. If so, it was a great way to end it.
If not, I really look forward to reading the next one.
February 27, 2022
What a great series! The conclusion is very satisfying and neatly ties up the storylines. I hope the people that created these characters are still playing COH now that it's back!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews