Equinox

This weighty, tech-laden sequel to 2012’s Containment entirely drops the plot threads of the first book and heads in a new direction. Luka Mance lives on the San Francisco, a nomadic deep-sea mining rig that contains an entire hermetically sealed city. The San Francisco’s original raison d’être was to mine and refine the minerals needed by the Coronians, a group of humans who live orbiting the Earth. While there is a symbiotic relationship between humans on Earth and in space, the differences that divide them lead to distrust and misunderstanding. By chance, Luka realizes that the Coronians are making plans that would completely exterminate the terrestrial dwellers, and she vows to stop them with the help of a tough cargo ship captain and a quartet of off-grid renegades. Flat characterization and excessive scientific detail slow the pace of this dystopian hard SF novel. (Mar.)