I didn't like this book nearly as much as the previous two in the series, NEW EARTH and DEATH WAVE. In those, humanity travels to a distant, Earth-like planet in search of a new home, since unconcerned humans are destroying the planet. They're in for a big surprise, though, because they find the world inhabited by humans. They explain they were created, from biological material taken from earth, by an intelligent artificial life-form that's trying to save the remaining intelligent life in the galaxy. A massive radiation wave is destroying all life-yet they have the technology to prevent worlds. In fact, they want humanity to go out among the stars and save these sentient creatures, as intelligent life is extremely rare in the universe.
In this story, an Earth starship is sent to a distant world to save one such species. They get there and find a few strange things, such as the planet in an erratic orbit. Also, the humanoids are asexual, plant-like beings who are extremely passive. When a nearby planet in its solar system comes near-creatures from that planet migrate over, via egg-ships and slaughter the inhabitants. But scientist Brad, studying the aliens, manages to save a small village from the killing. There's a lot of repetition about Brad and his new wife, Felicia, their commanding officer and the fact that everyone so readily discounts the alien's mythology, which obviously has a lot of basis on fact. It's all a little too simplistic compared to the other books. This novel has much more in common with Bova's earlier work, such as THE WINDS OF ALTAIR rather than the MARS trilogy.
I didn't like this book nearly as much as the previous two in the series, NEW EARTH and DEATH WAVE. In those, humanity travels to a distant, Earth-like planet in search of a new home, since unconcerned humans are destroying the planet. They're in for a big surprise, though, because they find the world inhabited by humans. They explain they were created, from biological material taken from earth, by an intelligent artificial life-form that's trying to save the remaining intelligent life in the galaxy. A massive radiation wave is destroying all life-yet they have the technology to prevent worlds. In fact, they want humanity to go out among the stars and save these sentient creatures, as intelligent life is extremely rare in the universe.
