In the beginning Dane Thorson wakes up with the headache the reader will have by the close. This is one of the author's uninhibited efforts where the plot gives up and anything goes. With more "monsters," "oozings" and "blobs" than you can shake a stun gun at. It's all part of Dane's problem. He's the cargo master on the Solar Queen, a free trader with a shipment of "Brachs" and tiny dragonesque creatures. Somehow, someone plants a weird radiation box on board and under its influence the Brachs retrogress. Which means in this case that they get smarter, reverting to an earlier, ancestral life form. The dragons retrogres also... with disastrous consequences, and there are all manner of nasty surprises when they finally reach their destination. Like "monsters," "oozings" and "blobs" and a universal conspiracy. This time Miss Norton's energy is enervating. (Kirkus Reviews)