Where MARROW was concerned with the discovery of the world within the world and its threats, now THE WELL OF STARS concerns itself with the threat from outside. The voyage to The Ink Well, the distant pan-galactic destination, seems to start as one of discovery, but then the polyponds, life discovered on the way becomes an evident threat. Not only are they an alien life form, their understanding of ontology - the philosophy of being - is rather at odds with humanity's continuing understanding of the same thing. Only one letter different, oncology is the science of cancer: to the polyponds there is almost no difference between being and cancer, both are better eradicated; 'nothing' is better than 'being'. Humanity which prefers to 'be', is a vector of this cancer and therefore needs to be excised. The polyponds attempt to wipe out the Great Ship. The Great Ship in turn attempts to heal itself, the way it has survived for millennia - yet it is not omnipotent, healing takes time, during which it is liable to further damage. Preventing that damage is the responsibility of the Captains, defeating the polypond attack becomes their raison d'etre.

AIs, the artificial intelligences which partner every human like a guide dog, are one aspect of the non-human on the ship, while the Remoras who live on the skin of the ship, mutating as it passes through different parts of space, are another. They live not just here in Robert Reed's shared universe, described for instance in his short story collection THE DRAGONS OF SPRINGPLACE, where the Remoras have an eponymous story to themselves. Not having read it myself I am still at a disadvantage to appreciate their dermic life - the treatment of the Remoras, despite the page count in this novel, is thin. Similarly I remain unclear whether AIs came aboard with humanity or existed aboard before the human occupation.

This novel has only five major characters and one of them - a sort of Trickster named O'Layle - may not be human, yet we learn little about the personalities of these characters. Their lives are measured in years counted in five and six digits, yet they remain as fixed in their roles on the bridge as if there were only minutes to portray them. This is most extraordinary in the character of Mere, a xeno-anthropologist, a sort of Margaret Mead, someone who has been married to an alien, yet seems to exist solely to be a suffering gatherer of factual experience. As I read about Mere and her relationship with the Great Ship I found myself remembering James White's HOSPITAL STATION with longing. Robert Reed himself seems full of the cold of space, empty of human feeling, and that vacuum permeates THE WELL OF STARS.