Starseed

The Robinsons return to the setting of their previous collaboration ( Stardance ) to further explore a universe in which humans are given the opportunity to live rarefied lives on the transplanted asteroid Top Step. The Starseed Foundation offers to train volunteers in preparation for joining with a symbiotic lifeform that provides all needed nourishment--food, water, air--and allows humans to live in vacuum. Humans who sign on also become telepathic with one another. The price, one's worldly possessions, is gladly paid by 46-year-old Rain McLeod, who has had to give up dancing (in gravity) because of knee and back injuries. She and several dozen other hopefuls move to Top Step, where the plot expands to include several religious groups offended by the heaven-off-earth created by the symbiote and the plans of various power hungry countries back on earth. The Robinsons' message--that love and communication are what being human is really about--is delivered with plenty of action, high tech and character development in a story that moves along briskly. (Oct.)