This is a review for the second book in the Chaos Chronicles by Jeffrey A. Carver. It is preceded by Neptune Crossing.

I enjoyed Neptune Crossing very much and couldn't wait to read this book. However, I have to say that it was quite a disappointment. The characters all remain very flat and unconvincing. The whole book consists of Bandicut and a couple of fellow aliens chasing and being chased by some computational "disturbance", whose nature is never resolved. The characters actions also do not make any sense to the reader, one just keeps wondering why the hell they are doing what they're doing.

Compared to Neptune Crossing, the author unleashes a wealth of alien creatures and technologies at the reader, but in contrast to the capturing descriptions in the previous novel, all the alien scenery remains a flat, unimpressive background that not even the novel's hero truly interacts with.

What especially annoyed me was the repeated dying of the quarx. Presented as a being with many memories of working with several races in the first book, it just doesn't jibe with it dying and resurrecting about 4 times within the same host.

Verdict: read Neptune Crossing (it's great!) and stop with that.