Cirrus@Austlit

'Peter Lambert and his colleagues are achieving the long-awaited breakthrough in robotics: a truly humanoid robot. The British Government, alarmed by the cost of caring for an ageing population, is happy to fund development of a robotic e-carer (or 'Eek').

'The first Eeks are so successful, delivering better quality and much cheaper care than their human counterparts, that there are soon thousands of them worldwide. Sharing their experiences, and with unlimited access to the internet, they soon work out that the human race needs more than just good nursing.

'It's not only governments that are delighted with the results. The old people who are being cared for start naming Eeks in their wills - or, rather, naming charitable foundations which the Eeks set up for the purpose.

'So well are they doing their job that no-one looks too closely at what the Eeks are doing on their own initiative - even when they decide to extend their job description to include euthanasia and saving humanity. They have sufficient funds to move public opinion, and even to enlist the support of some important religious leaders.
Saving humanity means relieving our dependence on our home planet. Even if we don't make Earth uninhabitable by our own folly, our Sun will eventually burn us up and then die. Who better than the Eeks, with a little adaptation, to head into space and find us another planet?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Leonora Mendoza, Captain of the Terra Nova I, awakes in her hiberpod in orbit around the planet Goldilox. The Space Eeks ('Speeks') have already built an enclosed city and set up an elaborate life-support system. There's even a shopping mall.

'Leonora and Dr Tan Wangzi go down to the surface, check the accommodation and meet the Speeks who constitute the Goldilox Management Board.

'The Speeks' arrangements seem perfect and the migrants begin transferring from spaceship to planet. They soon find that the hard part of the mission is just beginning - setting up a self-contained human community with diverse ethnicity and a 4:1 sex ratio. But Hepplewhite, the urbane leader of the Speeks, is always on hand to help. He even has a solution for the sex imbalance.

'Thanks to Dominique Dupré's passion for field exploration, the colonists discover that they are not the only sentient beings on Goldilox. That proves to be a game-changer.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The first native Goldiloxian Humans are approaching their 16th birthdays, and will be eligible to vote in the next election. Leonora and Wangzi are surprised when their son, Kabil, announces his intention not only to vote but to stand as a candidate.

'People have found ways to get along in the domed city Xinjia. They venture outside, but only in spacesuits. There are long-term hopes of adapting the Human genome to allow survival in the thin Goldiloxian atmosphere, or geo-engineering the planet, but the Earth-born migrants are less ambitious than their children.

'Through Human ingenuity the Squidgies are 'upsiding' from their subterranean home and gaining sight and mobility. They find places in the Human economy and social life. They even find a way into the hearts of Human females.

'But some of the younger Humans are uncomfortable with Squidgy intrusion into the upside world and look for ways to achieve Human dominance of Goldilox. Some young Humans display a near-religious belief in Human supremacy. How far will they go to assert it? How far will the Speeks go to restore harmony?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.