The death of the fearsome Ögedei Khan has brought the Mongol invasion of the West to an abrupt halt. Exhausted, plagued by uncertainty and self-doubt, and reeling from betrayal by one of their own, the surviving Shield-Brethren struggle across a frozen, shattered wasteland to return home after their desperate battle in Mongolia. Their mission is complete—Christendom has been saved—but new and terrible questions haunt each member of the company: Are they heroes or villains? Or just pawns in a larger game, trapped in a world gone mad in the wake of the unspeakable devastation visited upon it by the Mongol horde?
When I started reading “The Mongoliad” last year I thought it was a trilogy, so I was surprised when I reached the end of Book 3 only to find the story hadn’t wrapped up. In fact, this part of the Foreworld Saga is five books and I just finished “Katabasis” by Joseph Brassey, Mark Teppo, Cooper Moo, and Angus Trim (no Neal Stephenson anymore).