MacDonald continues to astound me by writing good fiction without much of a plot.

This series has become a fascinating study in I guess what we could call anthopology, by presenting alien, almost-human cultures and the humans' reactions to it. It is well thought out (at least the social aspects of it), and I continue to be interested in it, even though there is little or no rising action and certainly no hair-raising climax.

MacDonald's trademark is the variety of human or almost-human cultures that somehow spawned from a single source thousands of years ago. As such, these aliens are genetically human (or almost human), not merely humanoid, like so many science fiction stories where the aliens aren't supposed to be humans but sure seem to be. Her universe is much better thought out than that.

The human characters in the novel continue to be interesting. (If they weren't, the cultural survey of the alien planets wouldn't be interesting enough.) What makes this more interesting is the interaction of several almost-human cultures, while the humans are watching and enabling. Hard to say much more without spoilers, but I can certainly say that there are many laugh-out-loud situations where different cultural expectations lead to humorous conflict.

I'm not sure I'm going to go back and read this again and again--the characters are maybe not that good--but it was certainly entertaining and almost impossible to put down. Hence the 4 star rating. ( )