David Innes returns to the inner world with a prefabricated ship, gunpowder and a printing press, meaning to found an empire-and finds Dian gone and the reptile Mahars rebuilding theirs. Burroughs takes the sequel where the first book could not go: into the politics of a place with no night, where distance is unmeasurable and every journey is a gamble on direction. The empire gets built; the price is paid by everyone who follows him down. Sixty plates by painters including Adolph von Menzel and Vincent van Gogh carry the roads, mountains and night skies that map every gamble on direction in Burroughs's sunless world.
