This book takes place in the 36th century. Mankind has colonized
the entire solar system; the vast bulk of humanity lives not on Earth,
but in two massive orbital habitats, the Hive and the Aerie, which
occupy the L4 and L5 positions 120 degrees before and after Earth in its
orbit. Our hero, Jak Jannika, is a somewhat shallow, callow, and
feckless youth who has just graduated from the equivalent of high school.
When his girlfriend is kidnapped at a nightclub, he is sent by his Uncle
the social engineer to go rescue her. Which all sounds somewhat romantic,
but it isn’t really.

It’s hard to know what to make of this book. The cover touts it as a
mixture of Robert A. Heinlein and
Harry Harrison, with some justice; in some ways it
also appears to be a spoof of Iain M. Banks‘ “Culture” series.
The science is tolerably hard (or at least pretends to be), while the
tone ranges from deadly seriousness to cartoon lunacy. The two extremes
don’t fit together very well.

But it was not a bad read, and more enjoyable than I feared it might be.