So this is what John was fighting for since the beginning of this issue — since the beginning of the series, really, but nobody knew that at the time. A city in the frozen north, written in those blissful days pre-Palin when people could think of Alaska without imagining a seething cauldron of idiot guns-n-Jeebus hockey moms shooting the hell out of anything that moved while keeping a wary eye on Russia from the back porch.

I’ve first-drafted and never returned to a follow-up novel to Dead Eyes Open called Bolter; it’s a follow-up in the sense of being set in the same world some time later, but with none of the same characters or plot. It’s much more grounded in the mundane life of the people in this world; by this point in the world, Alaska is a distant promised land for run-of-the-mill Returners, and the idea of moving up there for a Returner is about as pragmatic and attainable as a dishwasher at a Denny’s yearning to retire to beachfront property in Boca Raton. The novel proves Ellard right in several small ways, and John right in some others. I really need to finish revising it.

As far as this story goes, though, we have a happy ending: John, slightly older and grimmer but intact, has reunited with Jane; Alaska is happening, all is right with the world.

Julie, however, is still a jerk. I like the idea of her minder being a chain-smoking skullfaced assassin corpse.