Never have I wrote a review, but this time I just had to. This book was so disappointing.I kept waiting for the author to start the story. Perhaps I am old fashioned that way, I want a plot. Many issues and concepts were hinted at but it all came to a crashing end with no real closure. Wilson was developing great characters but he kept killing them off before you got to know them. This story of earth science against alien nature is interesting, but it is more just a short story instead of a novel. Actually, it reads like the introduction to one of those space operas (which I happen to like reading now and then, so it isn't a bad thing.)Then just when something could really start to happen, the book ends.