Divergence

I happened across the first book of this series, Summertide, as an audiobook at my local library. That book is a slow burner; high on intellect, low on action. Divergence cranks everything up to 11. I finished Summertide only interested in the Builders, the ancient alien race who was so advanced that even after millenia of study, the races that inhabit the spiral arm are still no closer to understanding them. After finishing Divergence, however, I can't wait to see what happens with the cast. The characters are more faceted, they leap off the page rather than fall flat like they did in Summertide. Although just about all of the characters from that first book are equally as prominent here, I actually began to care what happened to them and I'm eager to learn what fate the author has in store for them in the next installment. Simply put, Divergence is a better book than Summertide.