I'll start off by saying I wasn't the biggest fan of Stargate Atlantis in the fifth season. In fact, I was never really a big fan of the show. It was good, but even at its best I couldn't look past the shadow of SG-1. I had picked up a few of the novels, but only a few of them were really worth mentioning. And #8, Nightfall by James Swallow -- despite the very pretty cover -- made me decide I'd never pick up an Atlantis novel ever again.

A friend of mine told me that I should rethink that plan with Homecoming. She knew one of the authors and was very confident that I'd be pleased. I was dubious. The fifth season of Atlantis had so many problems, and so few episodes I would call really good, that I wasn't sure I could stick with them for 350 pages no matter how good the authors were. A continuation of something you didn't really enjoy is just prolonging the torture, right?

Wrong.

Jo Graham and Melissa Scott are exactly the sort of people who should be writing tie-in novels. They truly know the show and its characters, but anyone could get the bare facts from a simple internet search. What can't be faked is a true dedication to the characters and the world of the series. It's not about pleasing MGM or the fans paying for the book; they want to please themselves. The authors of this book are fans. They're like us. And while they know it's impossible to please everyone, they are dedicated to doing their best to make sure the show and the characters are well-represented. Otherwise, what's the point?

The novel (and the series) picks up where "Enemy at the Gate" (05.20) left off. Atlantis has landed on Earth, and the IOA is highly reluctant to let them go home. They're also highly reluctant to allow any one country to have control of the station. Their plan is to evict the expedition and move in a multi-country committee to oversee its control and use. As you can imagine, that goes over really well with the crew of Atlantis (along with SG-1’s Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter, who make very welcome cameos throughout the first part of the book, even if you might question Jack O'Neill's actions for a little while) and the plotting for a return to the Pegasus galaxy commences.

The book opens with a scene of Atlantis on its way home, so it's no spoiler to say that Atlantis is eventually allowed to go back where they came from (the fun comes in figuring out HOW they get to go home, and I won't spoil that here). Back in Pegasus, and stranded on a new and frozen planet, the team starts reconnecting with the allies who long thought them dead. Halling makes an appearance (very welcome) as do the Genii (eh, maybe not so welcome... who can tell with these guys?) and Todd.

Oh, Todd. How much do I love what these writers do with Todd (or "Guide" as he refers to himself)? He becomes a fantastic character in his own right, something that wasn't and couldn't have been done on the series. We get inside his head, and it's as frightening and confusing as you might expect. There are long sequences where we get to see the Wraith from a Wraith point of view. It's an amazingly interesting way to go, when the authors could have just as easily painted over the hierarchy of a strange and complex race of creatures.

Before the team can even really settle back in, they realize that Pegasus hasn't been on pause since they left. There's a new Wraith Queen in town, and she's a badass. She calls herself Queen Death. Oh, yeah. Just like Sokar in SG-1, you don't pick a name like that unless you can back it up. [He took on the mantle of Satan. – Ed.] She's been cutting a swath of destruction through the Pegasus Galaxy while our heroes were absent, and now it's up to our heroes to save the day.

That's as far as I'm willing to go with this review because, really, the surprises and twists make the book so much fun that I don't want to spoil them. There will be some developments that I'm sure some fans will be upset about, and things happen that will have fans bouncing off the walls (either in a good way or a bad one). But the thing is that those things make sense within the context of who these characters are. This book series doesn't have to reset everything to zero when it's done, which opens the door to all kinds of character and relationship developments that the TV series was unwilling or unable to explore. While I may not be the biggest fan of some of the choices made, I really respect that the authors went there instead of just coasting along with the status quo.

The characters are all really well drawn. I can hear the words coming out of their mouths, I can see them making the decisions they're given in the book, and it's simple to envision it as an episode. My only qualm was the fact that, in Woolsey's segments, he refers to himself as "Dick." That irked me enough that I contacted the author, who explained it by reminding me that the only time Woolsey was in a casual setting, he asked a woman to call him that. I'll buy that, I suppose. It was enough to erase my ire and let me read the rest of those segments without getting frustrated.

Fair warning: This is the first book in a series, which means the story is not neatly wrapped up at the end of the novel. Strings are left untied, characters are left in jeopardy, and you can almost hear the music rising as the screen fades to black with the dreaded "To Be Continued..." onscreen. Unlike Stephen Savile's ending, however, the book doesn't feel like a waste of time with a cliffhanger tacked on. I don't consider an ending like this to be a cliffhanger, no matter how many people are in danger or how many plots are still running. I think of it as hooking a carabiner. You've gotten as high as you can with this one, but the carabiner is hooked right above you, and as soon as the next novel comes out, you can latch onto it and keep climbing. That's what this ending does (and very effectively). Even if you're desperate to know more, the book contains an excerpt from the sequel that helps ease the pain of not knowing. It hooks you into the next novel in a satisfying way (even if it does leave you tearing your hair out wanting to see what happens next).

At the beginning of this review, I said that I wasn't a fan of the final season of Atlantis. They had far too many episodes that just didn't rise to the level I had hoped. That said, this book reads like the first three or four episodes of an amazing sixth season. If this adventure had been cut up into a three-part opening, I would have been on the edge of my seat waiting for the rest of the season to see where things are going. As it is, I am -- for the first time -- anxiously awaiting the release of the next Stargate Atlantis book (hopefully at the end of February, though with Fandemonium’s laxity about release dates, one never knows) called The Lost, by Jo Graham and Amy Griswold

  -- Geonn Cannon