We meet the main character, the former survey pilot John Bandicut who has lost his internal link to the datanet because of faulty nanomachines used after an accident. He is working on Triton, an icy moon of Neptune when he is led to discover an alien computer, probably sentient. An alien, a quarx, entered his head and he got several stones that would later become a part of him. He could tell no one about the quarx, whom he named Charlie. Charlie said that they would have to steal a ship in order to save the earth. When he eventually got back to the Triton station, he met his true love, Julie Stone (Is it possible to find your true love after knowing each other for only a couple of days?). We also learn about his only living relative, Dakota Bandicut, the orphan daughter of his brother, living with her mother's parents. We learn that the quarx is the only survivor of a very old civilization that uses advanced chaos theory, and through use of this theory they can predict that a comet will collide with Earth if it is not deflected or stopped. The rest of the book is his reluctant adventure in stealing a ship and two robots, Napoleon and Copernicus, and using one of the stones to shoot them across the solar system. The other two stones imbed themselves into his wrists. He does save the earth, although they won't admit it, and when he can focus again, he finds himself outside the galaxy near a huge artifact, which takes him in. This is a good start to the series, in which we learn more than I can understand about chaos theory, and about other theories. It sets the stage to the human bureaucratic way of thinking. The following books become better and better, in my opinion. However, this one is needed for the necessary background.

Bandicut finds himself on a shipworld somewhere above the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. Charlie has died in saving him, but eventually another comes into being, as will be the case a number of times. Each of the Charlies has a different personality. He is normalized (genetically altered) to be able to live in this world and eat the food available there. He eventually meets the Hraachee'a named Ik and the Karellian named Li-Jared, both with translator-stones like his own. He meets the fractal shadow people who need him and his friends to save the vast shipworld, with it's many environments and sentient beings, some of whom he meets, from the being that is trying to destroy it, a being called a "boojum." They of course succeed, with the help of John's enhanced robots and a new friend with stones, the Thespi female, Antares. These four plus the robots eventually are asked to go and save another world, which will be the next story. I liked this book not only for the incredible shipworld, bigger than our solar system, but also for the many alien species we meet. The discussion of how the shipworld works is interesting. Also, we find that each of the new companions has his or her own sadness, loneliness and dreams to find his or her own kind again.

It becomes apparent that John Bandicut and his companions are becoming troubleshooters for some entity. They journey aboard a star-spanner bubble to an ocean world where they do some more conventional saving of people. They manage to eventually establish contact with an object deep in the ocean that is causing havoc for not only the sea people (Neri), but also the land people. They also do the more conventional mediating between two different people. A good story with a nice happy ending, but in the end they go off for a further adventure. One thing of interest in this book are cut backs to Julie Stone, who finds the alien artifact that started everything for John Bandicut, and she receives translator stones as John did. That portends for an interesting future.

Another great book. We get to learn about types of sentient beings which include dark clouds, suns, black holes and n-space beings. We are still with the companions met in the previous books, but they have a much harder job this time. They are fighting the "Survivors" who are trying to get rid of all biological life in the galaxy. They must enter suns and deal with dark matter, among other things. They manage to save the Orion Nebula, but that is just a tiny part the problem. Julia Stone is back, saving the solar system and where does she end up? On Shipworld, of course. The robots get more and more helpful and self sufficient. Poor Ik loses his translator stones to a virus and they all end up on Shipworld again. I am interested in any future book in the series. So many questions are left unanswered. Does the translator from Triton survive? How/when will Julia and John meet? How will the relationship between John and Antares be affected? Will Dakota become part of a future story? How will Ik get new translator-stones (I'm sure he will)? One of the dark clouds that helped them got translator stones. Will he be part of a future story? Will they all need to go to the center of the galaxy to confront the anti-biological entities? Hope it doesn't take too long for the author to continue this saga.