More tension. Higher stakes.
...Needs better editing.

This was a WILD ride. The stakes are real now.
And the further into the story we get, the more distrust for the council. These folks are DEFINITELY involved somehow.

( is it me, or does the editing get worse with every story? ) ( )

Underwood continues to entertain with his series of Genrenauts novellas, which I am reading out of the omnibus but reviewing individually. I read them in early draft form, so it's fun to revisit them now after they have evolved into final form. This one explores detective/murder show tropes with a lot of winks, nudges, and straight-out tributes. The Genrenauts are an eclectic group who travels to story worlds that parallel Earth to repair "broken" story lines that cause terrible ripple effects elsewhere. This novella explores one of the many parallels of their job: if a Genrenaut stays too long, they can become part of the story and can't return home. That danger causes a nice escalation of tension as the story moves along. Underwood hits all the beats that you would expect in an episode of a show like Castle, but with fantastic twists. ( )