The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm: Two

A baffling situation gets more complicated in the second entry in Australian author Williams's Books of the Cataclysm series. A far-future Earth has been shattered into different, isolated zones where magic has replaced electricity and where humans uneasily share space with ghosts, golems and animated statues. Two young men, Sal and Skender, who were friends in the first book, The Crooked Letter (2006), undertake separate quests to rescue parents from the results of stirring up arcane turbulence, especially by creating a potentially dangerous homunculus that brings two souls back from the void. The motives of the people around Sal and Skender are unclear or questionable; their own long-term goals are uncertain; and the action breaks off before anything has been resolved except that they'll follow the homunculus's trail. The detail of Williams's imagined world and his characters' concern with the moral consequences of their actions compel interest, though readers will have to wait until the final installment to see whether all the pieces fall into a coherent, satisfying whole. (Oct.)