Wildeblood's Empire

An original story of a planetary colony addicted to white powder secretly distilled from whaley spawn in underground caves. The author was a bit annoyingly lofty though. ( )

The Daedalus travels to colonies that Earth abandoned for quite a while to see if future colonies are worth trying. If a colony is collapsing, as a previous mission found many had, can it be saved? If it is succeeding, is it true success that is replicable?

In the third landing, the Daedalus finds a colony that has succeeded by having its founder, a biologist, set up a rigid society with everyone is addicted to a secretly produced drug. The puzzles are: where does the drug come from, what did the founder have in mind doing things this way, and what does that sequence of numbers he left behind mean?

The author's heart is clearly in the puzzle-solving. Pages of exposition as the hero tries to work out the answer are interrupted periodically with some random running around to supply the needed action. With a really good puzzle, this can be OK but this one isn't really that big a surprise.

To me, the most interesting aspect of this third book is the maturing debate between the scientist hero and the administrative leader of the mission, on the political realities of future colonization. It's too small an element to lift my rating but worthy of note.

Also worthy of note is a brief reference to ideas being viral. Now if only Stableford had used the word "meme." ( )