River of Bones

The breathless 13th installment in the saga of a WWII destroyer crew on an alternate, dinosaur-populated Earth (following 2017’s Devil’s Due) brings the war to the reptilian Grik’s homeland of Africa. With the human protagonists’ talisman ship, the USS Walker, laid up for repairs, focus shifts to another stranded vessel, the converted freighter USS Santa Catalina, commanded by the men who salvaged her (in 2010’s Distant Thunders). They are tasked with stopping the Grik Final Swarm before they can reach the open ocean. Heroic stands abound as humans, their lemur-like ’Cat allies, and the vicious Grik find reasons to dig in and defend against overwhelming attacks. Anderson restricts his attention to the active war zones (Africa and South America) in his global narrative of tolerant Allies walloping their Axis opponents. Interestingly, as he humanizes the formerly mindless killer Grik, he makes the human fascists more repellant, even to one another. Even the strongest warriors are starting to complain that the “rush” of combat is waning, perhaps signaling that the series will be ending soon. In the meantime, this volume is a perfectly satisfying continuation of a strong alternate dimension series. (July)