Tides of Light (Bantam Spectra Book)

This is an immediate sequel -- well, two years have passed, but not too eventfully -- to Great Sky River, with the same characters, but back to Benford's interplanetary comfort zone. It continues the tone and structure of the previous novel surprisingly well, given the dramatic change in canvas. As

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before, there is a message literally out of the blue from the magnetic entity that is annoyingly human sounding, but this time the plot effects are not so pulp-ishly broad. As before, Benford has to explain absolutely everything. This time, our heroes have to contend not only with the mech super-civilization but super-intelligent cyber-spiders, a cosmic string planet slicer, and, eventually, a space "tree" 1000s of miles long. Benford just barely manages to hold everything in place for the story to flow along, but can't avoid having everything eventually depend on a major piece of fortuitous timing.

Despite the cyber-spiders and space tree, this is one of Benford's better books. A worthy sequel and recommended to fans of far-fetched space opera.

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