The 5th entry in the Daedalus series wanders away from the original mission, from most of the team members, from science fiction, and from any clear point. The one common element with the previous entries is a tendency for the main character to talk for paragraphs and pages. There are several scenes that could have been very dramatic but they were over-talked to death.

Stableford skips the usual landfall and "what kind of situation do we have with this colony" discussion. The book starts on a ocean voyage on a sailing ship from the human colony to another landmass inhabited by furry humanoid felines. (Eventually there's an unconvincing explanation for why this mode of transport rather than simply going by spaceship.) The book sticks mostly to an action plot throughout, avoiding the serious derailment of The City of the Sun. But other than a mysterious epidemic, mostly off-stage, there's no SF puzzle solving, and no furthering of the big question about whether colonization is a viable option for Earth. The SF elements are the furry aliens, who act just like us, and a character worrying about what will happen to her somewhat telepathic abilities. Don't hold your breath for much of an answer. At the end, I still had no idea why Stableford wanted to tell this story. ( )

The Deadalus continues is mission, this time heading to the world named Attica where a human colony on the Gamma continent is fighting for its survival. As the colony has grown, the imported plants which formed the basis for the sustainability of the colony have suffered and rather than a bounty grown by a few to feed the colony, simple subsistence farming has become the norm. With a trend towards complete self-sufficiency, the colony is on a dangerous path - a path towards fragmentation and ultimately disintegration of the colony. Unless... Unless there is a cause - a grand plan - around which the colony can rally, the colony is doomed. With in mind, our intrepid ecologist, Alex Alexander, sets sail from the Gamma continent to the Delta continent - already inhabited by aliens.

And so begins the fifth of the Daedalus Missions... I actually had a bet with a friend of mine that Stableford would pull a play out of his old playbook and use the "unknown third party manipulating the two enemy factions" plotline again. But he didn't. I actually thought this was a superior book to the first of the Daedalus books. There's more action, for one thing. And the plight of the Verheyden family is interesting and its tragic demise rang true. While the final end may have been a little too tidy, it seemed quite plausible and in-character. ( )

One far flung planet, two continents. On the first: a human colony, finally being visited on a check-up from the UN survey team after well over a hundred years. The other, on the far side of a sea that has yet to be crossed, are the native people of the planet, with their own hopes and dreams that don't necessarily synch with the colonists.Manifest Destiny, socio-religious political manoeuvring and plain old superstition combat the patient, yet persistent Daedalus scientists as they try to set the planet on a more stable course. ( )