The book is supposed to be the third part of a series. I have read the second part which felt pretty much like a separate book. This does also; I didn’t really notice anything which would tie it together with the former part. This book didn’t exactly have any coherent plot in the traditional sense. It followed several different people, who live at generation ships which were launched from the Earth centuries (?) ago. After they met aliens, the fleet of the ship stopped and some people moved to planets. As humans were the least developed known sentient species, they had little to offer for the galactic society. The human society on the ships has developed to some sort of anarcho-communist. There is no money, everyone’s needs are met and also, everyone must take part in less desirable work. The ships are self-sufficient and basic food and housing are free, but there is some banter going on, especially with things which originate from the alien worlds. (There were some problems in how the electric energy used on ships was described to originate - apparently, the author isn’t very familiar with the basic laws of thermodynamics).
The stories of the different people didn’t exactly tie together, but they at least tangentially touched each other’s lives. There was so little actual plot, that it is hard to give any real synopsis of it. The writing was fine, the characters were fairly (but mostly not very) interesting, but the book wasn’t really captivating as everything felt more like a “slice of life” than like something would be really happening. The book wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything really good, either.
359 pp.
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