Review Summaries

• Readers praise the ambitious hard-SF setup and careful world-building, though the overall tone is restrained and the aftertaste is quiet.

Reviews

• A good story with some surprising twists. The main character is a complex woman with some intense baggage and history to overcome, that also makes her character so interesting. The other characters are good, but not nearly as interesting. The enemy is also interesting and offers a chance at future episodes, but seems to be shut down at the end. Not sure if there's a way back or not. In any case, the imagined alien world is compelling and it's creatures interesting. I would like more. This could become a good movie or series.

• Beautifully written with intricately and elaborately described locations and scenes, the book truly takes us to a different world

• This is an early Paul McAuley, but it has lost nothing over the years of its brilliance. Long before red dwarf stars were being seen as stable and a safer long term home than stars like our own sun, McAuley was speculating about life in these systems. If you have never read one of his books before, this is a good place to start.

• This guy is a smart and engaging writer. The plot dragged in a few parts, but overall hard to put down.

• Despite this book and series featuring telepathy (which I don't normally like), I think the book and the series it spawned are great. Humanity finds aliens, there's a misunderstanding, due to a complete lack of communication, leading to deadly interstellar war, and a telepath is sent to a dwarf planet that has been spun up and seeded with animals and plants from many planets.

Purchase links