Ascending

OK I almost gave up on this book right away. I mean come on, really? We meet aliens for the first time and they look and (to a large extent) even act pretty much like us? Absolutely no way. Evolution just doesn't work like that! But then I remembered that I have happily enjoyed many years of Star Trek in which most of the aliens are very human like and some are even biologically compatible. So, I decided to suspend disbelief and gave Ascending another go.
Once I got past that little hurdle, the story worked fine for me. I quite enjoyed it.
Solid four stars.