After losing Dirk to his lady love in the previous book in the series, Magnus takes on his next planet alone. He drops down to the planet and immediately gets jumped, knocked on the head and enslaved. It's kind of interesting because that bump on the noggin robs Magnus of his psi powers - rendering him simply human. To his credit, Stasheff doesn't do this often - but it certainly makes for a more interesting story when he drops Magnus back to simply normal form.

After Magnus regains his powers, he escapes (of course) and heads out to find other escaped slaves. Along the way he meets another escaped slave, Alea. Now, because I've already read the Warlock's Last Ride, I know what ends up happening, and I already know what will happen between this book and that one - nothing. She's scared of men. He's scared of love. If not for the constant whining about "does he or doesn't he" and "will she or won't she" the dynamic is kind of interesting.

As for the main plot - Magnus joins together a couple of different groups against their oppressive overlords then leaves the planet for the natives to finish things off... ( )