From Booklist
The fifth and longest Jupiter yarn is a little hard to place in the series' chronology. But not to quibble. Pournelle's first work written without a coauthor in many years is an extremely strong story. Kip, a boy on the interstellar colony Paradise, learns he has a communications chip in his head that allows him to speak to an artificial intelligence program that was left in the ruling corporation's main computer by his dead mother. With his friends Lara and Marty, Kip becomes crucial in the fight against a takeover of the corporation by those who would destroy the semisapient centaurs and the highly intelligent and dangerous aquatic plants called Starswanns. Kip turns out to be heir to the corporation, a discovery that comes, along with the victory of the good guys and gals, only after plenty of suspenseful action in a well-realized setting. This novel echoes Heinlein's juveniles more closely than any other in the series, but that will be no fault to most readers. Roland Green

There's a lengthy introduction to this book in which the author discusses his early interest in science fiction and his start as a writer. One of his major influences both as a reader and a writer was Robert Heinlein and the influence in clear in this book.

I would classify this as more of a young adult story than adult science fiction but it loses nothing for that. A well-written, good story.