The Steel Remains is a slight change of course for Morgan away from his usual hard-boiled science fiction. Here, he tries his hand at gritty swords-and-sorcery fantasy with flawed, perhaps controversial, characters. The main protagonist, Ringil, is a sword-wielding warrior who engages in gay sex with as much gusto as when he fights on the battlefield. The plot takes a very long time to get going, and this volume (of a proposed multi-volume cycle) ends abruptly. The other characters are somewhat less fully developed than Ringil, but they hold promise. There is reasonable closure here, with plenty of possibilities for the next entry.