A Slow Train to Arcturus »

Eric Flint is a popular star of SF and fantasy. His 1632, which launched the New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series, sold out in hardcover almost immediately, followed by multiple printings in paperback. His first novel for Baen, Mother of Demons, was picked by SF Chronicle as a best novel of the year. He currently resides in northwest Indiana with his wife Lucille.

Dave Freer, author of The Forlorn and the critically acclaimed A Mankind Witch and of many articles in scientific journals, is an expert on sharks and an accomplished rock climber, a wine-taster, a chef and was an unwilling conscript in the “undeclared” South African-Angolan War. With Eric Flint he has co-authored Rats, Bats & Vats, The Rats, the Bats & the Ugly, Pyramid Power and Pyramid Scheme. He has also collaborated with Mercedes Lackey and Eric Flint in a sweeping alternate history-fantasy set in the Renaissance. The first two books in the series, The Shadow of the Lion and This Rough Magic have been enthusiastically received by critics and readers. The trio have also produced a sequel to James H Schmitz's classic The Witches of Karres, The Wizard of Karres. Freer lives in KwaZulu, with his wife Barbara, two sons, and far too many dogs and cats.

The planet Miran had sent a spaceship to rendezvous with the enormous vessel that was approaching their star system. The vessel's design was odd—a multitude of separate globular habitats in a framework—and most of the alien team that entered one of the habitats were slaughtered by savage creatures called “humans.” One alien had barely managed to escape to another habitat where the humans were more friendly, if rather technologically backward. But he needed to get back to his spaceship, and he would need one human's help to do that.

They would have to travel through several more habitats, each one isolated from the other, each with its own bizarre dangers and customs. And friendliness toward strangers was not one of those customs. . .

Publishers Weekly

Flint and Freer's latest collaboration (after 2007's Pyramid Power) doesn't bring anything original to space opera, but its fast pace and pulpy premise make for an engaging if shallow adventure. When a vast relic made up of massive bubbles approaches a star system inhabited by sentient space-faring aliens, a team of researchers is sent to investigate. Soon after the inquisitive aliens enter one of the bubbles, they're attacked by its murderously insane human inhabitants. Alien xenobiologist Kretz barely escapes into another bubble, and in order to get safely back to his ship, he must somehow traverse numerous virtually inaccessible environments, all populated by divergently evolving human societies. Flint and Freer's action-packed, often humorous story ultimately lacks substance but makes it up in fun. (Oct.)

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