I read another reviewer describe this series as "what if first contact were handled by academics?" I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. Victoria, Stephen Thomas, Satoshi, and J.D. battle to keep politicians and military leaders out of their business because they believe so strongly in peaceful first contact and the sharing of knowledge. But they aren't treated just as academics, we get to know them intimately experiencing Victoria, Stephen Thomas, and Satoshi's poly partnership, J.D.'s deepest thoughts and feelings about her friends, and even her attachment to the alien squidmoth she befriends. A fantastic series, one that rekindled my affection for scifi on starships. ( )

Received as an ebook via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. At that time I had no real facility to read ebooks easily, and had also not realised that this was an omnibus edition of four works originally published in the 1980s to 1990s (so why my opinion would really add anything to the conversation, I'm unsure). The enormity of slogging through these got to me in the end, and I abandoned the task without much regret. I found the characters contrived and far too numerous; some interesting concepts were raised but were not presented in an engaging enough manner for my taste.

A lot of new ideas, but way too much time spent on uninteresting details about the multiple characters. It took a long time for me to get into the first book and I almost gave up before finishing it, but was worth it for the meeting with the different kinds of aliens in the later books. ( )

'Starfarers' is superb, the following three novels don't quite have the same degree of innovation or levity, but they do remain interesting and fun. Occasionally the sensual scenes seem a bit unnecessarily detailed, but in general the character interactions make this work particularly well, with the varied aliens and the magnificant art project coming a close second.

The series follows the launch of Earth's first interstellar space ship, a giant pair of rotatating cylinders containing a balanced eco-system, which can traverse the light years between stars through the means of interacting with a 'cosmic string' that has drifted into earth's solar system. Onboard are not just the usual scientists but a range of people with a wide breadth of experience from grandparents to artists. This is both the highpoint and the weakness of the series. Some of these characters are really excellant, but in the later books the focus tends to drift away from them, and we spend a lot more time with just a few of the main characters. As a style this doesn't really work so well, because the occasional interjections from the other characters interrupt the main flow, but without having enough presance to create a story of their own.

The first book describes the troubles all the members face in even getting into space, while the later three are each about meeting different aliens and eventually the conditions that force them to choose between further exploration and returning to their uncertain fate back on Earth. The aliens are suitably alien in at least appearance. They do tend to a somewhat human personality though which is a very difficult trait avoid.

Despite featuring scientists in the key roles, there is very little science displayed and quite a bit of interperosnal relationships, and sociology. All good SF should be commenting on potential societal issues, and this doens't do a bad job of highlighting some of the issues with utopia, and does expose many human truths, but ulitmately it fails to live up toi the shear exhuberance that the first book promised. ( )

I usually love a sci-fi book to throw me in the middle of a new world, without any explanations, and let me figure it out. But after a couple hundred pages of the first book of the series, I still felt as if I were missing large parts of the story, parts that the author assumed I knew. I couldn't find a way to connect the future depicted to any imaginable timeline. The pleasure I get from learning about the book's environment though immersion never came, as the pieces just wouldn't fall into place. I probably would have continued reading, except that I also felt as if the characters were complete strangers to me, even halfway through the first book. Perhaps in this case, the e-book format was against me in enjoying this series. But in any case, I just didn't want to devote more time to reading something I wasn't enjoying. ( )