In the Company of Others Book

This is SF space opera/first contact novel. It was a Philip K. Dick Award Nominee (2002). I read is as a part of monthly reading in January 2020 at The Sword and Laser group.

The book starts very interesting: a couple flies to an unregistered terraformed world. The wife is about to give birth, when she find out that her husband is a grandson of the terraformer, who changed this world (which is great) and that the terraformer's name was Susan Witts (which is very bad), who, it assumed, infected the terraformed worlds with the Quill, which killed all humans there and also lead to other problems, like all colony ships had to dock to space stations (which never assumed such population density) or try to return to Earth (and be destroyed due to the fear of contamination). The wife gives birth and a baby boy in named Pardell to honor the name of the world to which they fly and husband's father. So, in a very brief intro we are made aware of the setting and then the couple dies (?) during the landing, for the Quill are on this planet as well.

Then we fast forward two decades to the real story that starts at the Thromberg Station, one of a few that received a great number of former colonists. Our main protagonists there are Aaron Pardell (see above) and his friend, a giant of a man, Hugh Malley. We, the readers get accustomed with how the situation of extreme population density affected the station (sleeping in shifts, re-using everything they have, a barter-like economy, etc). There are newcomers: a research ship from Earth. The third and maybe most interesting protagonist is introduced: Gail Smith, a born diplomat (and manipulator) who decided instead to become a scientist and reconquer the terraformed worlds from the Quill.

The setup is very promising even if it sometimes doesn't hold water, like the idea that all terraformed worlds were ready for colonist at the same moment (and terraforming was extremely fast, like years). The true problem of the novel is that it started to re-iterate and prolong the story unnecessary, often with short chapters, each ending with a cliff-hanger. So, what started as a 4-star read ended up 3-star story, which an interesting and unusual ending.