Synopsis
John Bandicut and his company of alien friends have journeyed from the vast, enigmatic Shipworld back into the Milky Way galaxy. Arriving on a mysterious ocean planet in the "star-spanner" bubble, they find themselves underwater - and sinking rapidly. Below them lies an undersea city, where a race known as the Neri live in a world lit by artificial light and bioluminescence.
Bandicut and the others are immediately captured by the suspicious Neri. The Neri are a people besieged: from above, by the inimical race they call the landers, whose activities are poisoning the sea...from within, by the failure of their own irreplaceable deep-sea factories...and from below, by the Maw of the Abyss, a terrifyingly destructive entity at the bottom of the sea, now stirring back to life after a long silence.
But why were Bandicut and his company sent here? To intervene in the war with the landers? To try to save the Neri from the Maw of the Abyss, as alien powers once saved the Earth? For Bandicut, the discovery of the true nature of the Maw is only the beginning of an answer. Time is running out. They must solve the deadly riddles that threaten to destroy this world.
Reviews
Interstellar troubleshooter John Bandicut returns for an amiably routine third installment (after Strange Attractors) in Carvel's Chaos Chronicles, journeying to a world where the dominant civilization, the Neri, live under the sea. There, Bandicut and his motley crew (comprised of three aliens, two robots and an artificial intelligence in Bandicut's brain), aided by "translator-stones" that let him communicate with other species, deal with two menaces: the Astari, land-dwelling survivors of a crashed starship, and the Maw of the Abyss, a sapient interstellar portal that has accidentally endangered the planet while trying to repair itself. The witty tale moves briskly, as Bandicut and company solve one puzzle after another, but the multiplicity of technological marvels leaves many of them underdeveloped or implausible. Flavorless dialogue, moreover, undermines not only the wit but the characterization, particularly of the aliens. Loyal fans of the series should enjoy this competent, but by no means exceptional, work.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The third exercise in alien science and diplomacy for former planetary surveyor John Bandicut (Strange Attractors, 1995; Neptune Crossing, 1994), his embedded translator stones, his cranial lodger (the serially immortal quarx--this latest version is female), his alien allies Ik, Li-Jared, and Antares, and the intelligent robots Napoleon and Copernicus. Flung off across the galaxy in a force- field bubble by the mysterious powers of Shipworld, Bandicut and companions sink beneath the ocean of a world whose amphibious Neri are threatened by hostile land-dwellers; even worse, the Maw, a deadly, unknown force lurking in the deep, is causing earthquakes and ocean currents that will soon sweep away the fragile Neri undersea cities. The Neri are at first hostile and suspicious of their visitors, but are then won over when Bandicut cures some of them from radiation sickness contracted during the salvage of a huge sunken wreck. As the friends come to grips with the local situation, Bandicut discovers that the wreck is really a starship, that the land-dwelling Astari arrived in it--and that the Maw caused the crash! With the help of the now cooperative Astari, they gingerly probe the Maw--actually an ancient stargate that, damaged in space, fell into the ocean with its mission unfulfilled. Since the Astari vessel cannot be moved, the dying stargate agrees to complete its mission by sending Bandicut and friends through in their force-bubble. Another splendid adventure, with intriguing puzzles, first- rate problem-solving, and an impressive array of alien characters, motives, and methods. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
In the first two of Carver's Chaos Chronicles, John Bandicut, a renegade former astronaut, saved Earth from certain destruction by a rogue comet, then journeyed to a bizarre, hyperspatial "metaworld" to confront a powerful information virus. Now, joined by the alien shadow people Ik and Li-Jared as well as his trusty robots and Charlie, the mysterious, invisible "quarx," Bandicut finds himself on a new world amidst a perplexing underwater species. He establishes a tenuous bond with the amphibious Neri, only to be drawn into the Neri's deadly battle with a turbulent energy force known as the Maw of the Abyss. As before, it will be up to the quarx, whose constantly shifting personality has become unnervingly frantic, to tap its understanding of chaos theory to save the day. Overall, Bandicut's latest adventure doesn't quite match the power and promise of the first two, but fans who have come this far will find plenty of fascinating hard sf and entertaining plot twists to satisfy them. Carl Hays
This hard-science adventure follows, John Bandicut, interstellar troubleshooter; his three alien partners; and two sentient robots to a world made mostly of water. A deadly turbulent force, the Maw of the Abyss, threatens a race of intelligent amphibians who live in an undersea city. Great interaction among the partners and the amphibians recommends this for sf collections, especially those collecting the series.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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