Starfishers

Cook's gloomy, operatic 1982 sequel to Shadowline continues the adventures of Moyshe benRabi, a morose refugee from the overcrowded, violent welfare slums of Old Earth. As he spies for the Confederation, benRabi must overlay his real personality with personas more suitable to the tasks at hand. Partnered with the vicious Mouse Storm, the “small, brown, Oriental, Manchu-mustached” scion of a fallen house of mercenaries, benRabi is dispatched to infiltrate the isolationist Seiners, a community of humans with a monopoly on the material that enables faster-than-light communications. BenRabi soon finds himself infatuated with Seiner society—and one Seiner in particular—and unexpectedly in contact with extraordinary alien beings. An apocalyptic battle sets the stage for the trilogy's conclusion, Stars' End , without which this volume is not really complete. (Apr.)