Chaos Space by Marianne de Pierres - review

Chaos Space 
Marianne de Pierres
******
Science Fiction/Space Opera
Sentients of Orion #2


Cover - simple, stark, science fiction-esque.  Good cover without going overboard.


I loved reading Chaos Space.  Yet I can't figure out a good way to review it, without spoilers or going too much into summary mode.  So I'm going to keep it brief (maybe)


This is part of a four book series.  There are quite a few main characters - and each one is written wonderfully.  Each character has her/his own voice, and own personalities.  Some are people you'd love to know and some are people you'd love to punch.  In fact, a couple new characters are introduced and yet it never felt overwhelming to me.


In the first novel, Mira ran from her college (in the books, this is called something else) to avoid having gene surgery.  At the end of the last novel, she had finally met up with the biozoon - the sentient space ship of the family - the one that was to be given to Trin, even though Mira was the one with the ability to connect to the ship. 


The planet that her aunt lived on, where she ended up, and ironically that Trin ended up also - is attacked.  Chaos space is the story of how they escape - the story of  how they get in the position for Mira to take the Biozoon and leave the planet to ask for help. Trin has led survivors into caves to hide and wait for rescue.


At the same time JoJo has problems of his own-searching for his ship, and Tekton is also going through his own set of problems - though they are vastly different from Mira and Trin's problems.  And Sole, the godlike entity that JoJo came across - it's just trippy.  There are long range plans that Sole has, and they might not be good for the beings of all the planets.


Besides all the plotting and subplotting that dePierres weaves throughout each other, she does a brilliant, genius job with world building.  Each society that her characters come from has intricate behaviours, rules, and societies - and yet she manages to convey all  without large infodumping.  Even the knowledge that is needed to understand what is happening is layered in within the story - it's done so subtly that it's painless reading.  Such a refreshing read - it's loaded with intricate plotting, tech, knowledge and yet it's smooth reading.  You can become immersed and next thing you know - the book is over.  I have enjoyed all of Marianne de Pierres scifi novels.