Gardner, with his League of Peoples universe, is one of my current SF favorites. This book, pretty hard to find, completes my collection, even though it''s set on Earth that''s blocked off from the rest of the galaxy.

In the end, Gardner is a very formulaic writer. In his novels, there''s always some strange thing happening in the beginning that puts the protagonists way over their heads. Piece by piece, the thing starts to unravel and eventually it turns out that nothing is like it seems. And there''s a happy ending, of sorts at least. But the formula works, since with a whole galaxy to work on, the particulars are always different enough that it doesn''t feel too repetitive. Besides, there are the hints that everything is part of some cosmic master plan, though I''m really wary of those ever since X-Files.