From Publishers Weekly
Ambitious but disappointing, this new work by the author of Four Hundred Billion Stars is set centuries in the future after humans have won a war with a race of vicious xenophobic aliens at a distant stellar outpost. Towards the end of these campaigns, Dr. Dorothy Yoshida was implanted by a dying enemy matriarch with immense but difficult-to-tap knowledge of this ancient alien culture. After a five-year "debriefing" by the Navy, Yoshida finds tenuous freedom under the wing of the immensely wealthy, near-immortal Talbeck Barlstilkin, who plans to use her in an elaborate revenge scheme involving a renegade star on a collision course with our solar system. Along with veteran combat pilot Suzy Falcon and a schizoid cyborg mechanic and artist called Robot, Yoshida and Barlstilkin eventually become the crucial pawns in the endgame of a multimillion-year contest between eons-old civilizations. McAuley works best on a grandiose scale, creating both awe-inspiring starscapes and grand cosmological theories with impeccable scientific detail. However, much of the book is derivative, a farrago of SF elements done better elsewhere. This dense, difficult work has some great ideas, but the background is more interesting than the plodding plot.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
As a hypervelocity star approaches the solar system, research scientist Dorthy Yoshida and single-ship pilot Suzy Faldon become pawns in a race to the galactic core to uncover the star's origins and locate the remnants of an alien enemy. Hard science and heady mysticism combine in a story that relates nothing less than the "secret history of the universe." The presence of strong protagonists and an intriguing vision of the far future recommend this title for most sf collections.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
