Oh man. This must've been my fourth or fifth time through this book. I was crazy about this series about 30 years ago. Even then I realized that it wasn't exactly high literature. Today I'll describe it as pure pulp. The story could definitely be more, but Hohlbein is Hohlbein. I think as a teen it was easier to gloss over the really bad parts, fill in the gaps. I can still see the potential of the story, but reading this trash is so much harder. I won't recommend this for anyone over 20 or even just slightly sophisticated teenagers (which I apparently wasn't).