In this sequel to Silverwing, Shade and Marina return as does scary cannibal bat Goth, who is now determined to sacrifice 100 bats during a solar eclipse in order to raise his god to power and extinguish the sun for good. Mixed in with this supernatural story is an equally evil story of human experimentation, capturing bats (and rats and owls) and attaching explosives to them, to use them as essentially suicide bombers in a war. This is based on actual real events, as the author notes in his afterword. With bad guys like that, the weird supernatural god plot seems redundant and once more an odd clash between science and superstition. I'd have enjoyed the book a lot more without the weird underworld god element as the bat and bat/bird/rat politics alone make a very interesting story. Still, the bats are once again charming and described in interesting and sympathetic detail.