Tchaikovsky writes a lot of books and I like most of them. This one is a bit of a first contact story which has a LOT of discussion (both show and tell) of alien intelligence and a dystopian future in which people have left earth and only exist in corporate-run resource-exploitation schemes mowing down whatever is in their path. Some Lovecraftian sense of “What is OUT THERE?” It’s got a lot of spookiness to it and also left me with a lot of questions since it ended somewhat abruptly. Ripe for a sequel.