Leo Graf is an engineer. He loves what he does. He keeps space stations together, troubleshoots and inspects them, unknowingly saving thousands of lives in his career. He also teaches. In his next job for mega-corporation GalacTech he is to visit a space station and teach the residents all about his specialty. He is a little shocked when he arrives. There are 1,000 bioengineered people on the station ranging in age from birth to about twenty – affectionately called quaddies because they have arms where we have legs – engineered to be especially good workers in the zero gravity of stations. They are learning from Graf because the quaddies are getting ready to be deployed to company interests throughout the galaxy. But a new invention is about to make the quaddies obsolete. Can Graf put his career on the line to save the quaddies from destruction?
Above all this is a great adventure book. The last half of the book deals with the enactment of a plan, and I have never read a book where so many things go wrong all at once. You are rooting for Graf and the quaddies all the way! The book also brings up interesting ethical questions, like the rights of the bioengineered, as well as an interesting social dynamic which is created on the station. And if you enjoy this first entry in the series there are fifteen more!
