With a very tedious beginning, the story opens up to a pretty brisk YA political thriller…sadly, with a kind of hokey ending.
The hero belongs to an illustrious, and wealthy, family that is working, not very hard, to keep the family together. The older brother's political ambitions to be the de facto elected ruler of the world are hampered by his siblings' ambitions. All of this in the remnants of several horrific world wars where no political group trusts any other. Meanwhile, to make things more complicated, one of the siblings discovers that an alien artifact is homing in on the solar system and wants to talk to them. The wrong attitude to all this is assumed by the wrong people who want to assume the worst and are struggling to destroy the hero's rich family hegemony...and the alien artifact. All at the cost of human viability on Earth. ( )

It's a bit different, a star dynasty that spans multiple generations, it includes such wonders as the spare and the clone, as this family struggles to find their place in galactic history. ( )

A futuristic, post-cataclysmic, sci-fi soap opera. At least, that's my impression. And, while I was never really intrigued by conventional soap operas, this held my interest pretty well.

On an Earth whose population has been decimated and whose landscape has been forcibly altered by natural causes and the effects of mankind's weapons, political and national boundaries have been altered. The Saunder family has gained wealth and power due to the actions of the manipulative matriarch, and the three offspring are in positions of great power and responsibility. But the family has cracks that ultimately will risk tearing the family apart. And into this volatile mix comes news that an alien spacecraft is approaching Earth.

Hysteria, propaganda, deceit, betrayal, and redemption. What every good stereotypical soap opera needs. Throw in some advanced technologies and alien visitation, and you've got a rather interesting result. ( )