The Spin kept mankind secluded, hidden away behind its barrier, time slowed down to a crawl compared to the Universe beyond. But now the Spin is over. Mankind is free to retake a place in the Universe - only a Universe millions of years into the future.

As well as the barrier falling a mysterious arch has appeared over the ocean, an arch that should you travel beneath it, transports you to another world - countless light years travelled in a heartbeat.

Lise Adams has travelled to this new world to find out what happened to her father. She enlists the help of Turk Findley, an ex-boyfriend with a less than pearly-white past, to help her. However the time is not the best for her search, strange ash falls have begun, covering this new Earth with remnants of alien machines, believed part of the mechanism responsible for isolating mankind in the previous book.

Her search takes her into the secretive world of the Fourths, human beings who have taken a Martian treatment to extend their lives, and their project to engineer a child capable of communicating with the beings responsible for the Spin and the archway between worlds.

Robert Charles Wilson is one of the most imaginative science fiction writers there is. His ideas are so fresh, his takes on life so unusual without entering into surreality that I eagerly await each new book. That is until now. When I heard that he was writing a sequel I was quite dismayed.

Wilson's books are supposed to be new. How can a sequel achieve this. Simple, it doesn't! Okay there are still some concepts worth exploring - the archway between the worlds for one. But when compared to his earlier books there's just something missing. It's a okay story, don't get me wrong. The characters are well developed, some you root for, some just annoy you (the leader of the Fourths for one). But the spark is missing.

Sequels should not be what Robert Charles Wilson is all about. I am just going to have to wait his next book, when hopefully he will go back to amazing me once again.