Reviews

This fifth installment (after Tides of Light ) in Benford's ``Galactic Center'' series, set thousands of years in the future, finds the remaining humans from the planet Snowglade fleeing the genocidal Mechs in the spaceship Argo . As the vessel speeds toward the Galactic Center, the refugees verge on mutiny as food becomes scarce, Mechs close in and Captain Killeen grows ever more determined to discover what lies at the Core. Even Killeen's adolescent son, Toby, begins to question his father's fitness for command, particularly when he discovers that his nervous system has been used as a repository for the skills and personality of the captain's slain lover. Meanwhile, unknown to the Argo crew and passengers, bodiless, perhaps egoless, intelligences muse none-too-benignly on the action at hand and whether they should destroy the shipbound humans as part of their ``ancient task'' of wiping out humanity. If the first half of the narrative is a chase, the second half is a discovery: an exploration of the universe that lies within the human heart, as well as a study of nonhuman beings and of the artifacts of space and time that Benford's fevered imagination has strewn through eons of human history. The author's fans won't be disappointed with this tautly plotted entry in the series, which by now has eclipsed even Asimov's Foundation saga in ambition, and which still has one more book to go. (July)

YA-This science-fiction novel is the fifth in a series that began with In the Ocean of Night (Bantam, 1987). Except for the cliff-hanger ending, it stands on its own, with the background story filled in smoothly and mostly unobtrusively. In a future tens of millennia away, humans have been driven nearly to extinction by the metal-and-steel ``mechs'' The last humans live aboard an ancient spaceship, speeding toward the monster black hole at the center of the galaxy. This book focuses on Toby, 18, son of the ship's increasingly unstable ``Cap'n.'' Stranded with an ambiguously allied alien just above the horizon of the black hole on a bizarre worldlet made of compacted spacetime, Toby must survive attacking mechs and a ``Personality'' implant that's threatening to take over his mind. His change from boyish hesitation and dependence to mature uncertainty and strength of will make this partly a coming-of-age story. He is a strong character of some depth, as is the believable alien. The Cap'n, a major figure in previous novels, in this one is more of a tortured foil to Toby. The writing is good, although the attempts of Benford-a physicist- to describe the forces and matter around a black hole sound like descriptions of magic in a fantasy novel. While wordy and slow-paced at times, this installment is packed with enough excitement and strange concepts to bend the minds of curious YAs.-Chip Barnett, Rockbridge Regional Library, Lexington, VA

Pursued by hostile ``mechs''-sentient machines bent on destroying human life-the spaceship Argo carries a small group of survivors to the center of the galaxy in search of sanctuary. The latest in Benford's ``Galactic Center'' novels combines hard sf with the very human story of a young man caught between his love for his father and his need for independence. Most libraries should own this title.