A very decent read. Even though the point of view from the 'alien' species gave me the squick. There are two storylines going on here. One about the remains of humanity scrabbling about in the remains of their civlisation. One James Michener like tale of the development of an alien species also created by that human civilisation and the first contact thereof. I am maybe not totally raving about it because I did feel the ending was a little too twee and it seemed against the nature of the alien species to me (sorry, avoiding spoilers). I would still recommend though as Tchaikovsky is a major talent and I do plan to continue with this series.