Set late into Season 1 of the TV series, a room is found within the city of Atlantis that reveals a corrupted message with a new Stargate address. Sending a probe through, the site looks very similar to the set up of a knowledge repository uncovered by the original SG-1 team sometime before. Led on by the promise of possible new information or working ZPMs (zero point modules), Major John Sheppard leads a team once more into the unknown.

Martha Wells had Rodney McKay and John Sheppard down. I kept laughing at a lot of the banter between the two as, for the first time, John finds his Atlantean genes to be a detriment rather than a benefit.

Wells follows a very neat premise having to do with technology making mental sounds and corrupted technology pushing the sensitive toward madness. Atlantean knowledge is abused and others made to pay. Even your friends can be made into your enemies, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. John and Rodney must come up with a way to safeguard Atlantis even as John battles to retain his sanity and life.

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