Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: A gate to another world, in a book that goes nowhere

More than his other books, this work suffers from some of Stirling's weaker tendencies. Extremely long sections of the book do not move the plot forward or keep the characters or readers much interested in continuing with the story.Although it bears some similarities to the Island series, this had a lot of interesting potential. Unfortunately, many of Stirling's characters tend to fall along the cliche that no matter how devisive or unrealistic it is, they will eventually say "let's do it!" Not in those words, but his characters make unrealistic emotional changes that interfere with the "suspension of disbelief" needed in a good yarn.