This was pretty great. I really liked it and had been looking forward to it since I knew that it introduced my favorite character, Kowalski. I was a little disappointed to learn that Kowalski didn't get to use his ability to sign in this at any point, it's well after he would have learned how to sign, but I can understand that it might not be a skill that the author had thought of for him at the time.

This is however a great thriller. I had thought when I'd tried reading it before that the whole "secret mission" of the base had been based off of the monsters that were found there. And while I was partially right I was really surprised with how plausible the science was when it was revealed what was really going on.

The ethics argument wasn't one that was expecting in a book where guys shoot monsters in the face and the monsters keep on coming to eat them. But it was well thought out and well argued from both sides.

This is a very good thriller and has some very likeable characters and at least one very noticeable Firefly reference, which is fine with me.

Also: the heelturn that happens and the final punishment for the ultimate badguy is not only fitting, but very chilling and one of the more disturbing things to think about. It's what I think of as the "80's Treasure Hunting Rule": If your bad guy is really terrible he can't just die, he has to die in a way that is both terrible and ironic. This totally hits that and does it in a way that is really, really disturbing to think about, but which isn't described in a way that's too graphic.