Furious Gulf is the third novel in a series which began with Great Sky River (1987) and continued in Tides of Light.

Like those novels, it is set in the same universe as Benford's In the Ocean of Night and Across the Sea of Suns. (1984).

(Please see separate entries on Great Sky River and In the Ocean of Night.) A fourth novel in the series, Sailing Bright Eternity, appeared in 1995. All six books have been packaged by the publisher as the Galactic Center novels.

To a great extent, the major social concerns and themes of Furious Gulf are identical to those of Great Sky River — humanity's increasing ability to make radical changes in the human body, the difficulties of understanding both alien and machine intelligences, the dangers of human hubris. To this mix, however, Furious Gulf adds new concerns of its own. The grandeur of the...