Maureen is a skillful storyteller with a keen sense of how people interact (or struggle to) within a culture. She's into building things, but they ain't ringworlds: they're societies. There you discover social structures, informal conventions, a complicated set of human interactions/relationships, and plenty of chrome to boot. What makes this different, though, is that this is -background-. It's not the point of the novel, it sets up the point. Despite all these juicy details, the people that McHugh creates are even more developed and more interesting than the society. And these people grow, change (and don't change), accommodate each other and Deal With Life.

http://Maureen-McHugh.tribe.net