Description:

Since John Bandicut saved Earth from collision with a comet in Neptune Crossing and saved Shipworld from the boojum of Strange Attractors, his life has become one confrontation with chaos after another.

No sooner has he survived a harrowing escape from Shipworld than he and his eclectic band of aliens find themselves struggling to survive beneath the waves of a distant ocean world. They quickly discover they are not alone. A race of deep-sea humanoid amphibians, the Neri, are in trouble of their own. Long under attack by beings from the surface, they now face an even greater peril from the seafloor depths, a powerful force known as the Maw of the Abyss.

If Bandicut cannot solve the riddle of the Maw, the Neri's beleaguered world will die. And Bandicut and his friends will die with it.

From Publishers Weekly

Interstellar troubleshooter John Bandicut returns for an amiably routine third installment (after Strange Attractors) in Carvel's Chaos Chronicles, journeying to a world where the dominant civilization, the Neri, live under the sea. There, Bandicut and his motley crew (comprised of three aliens, two robots and an artificial intelligence in Bandicut's brain), aided by "translator-stones" that let him communicate with other species, deal with two menaces: the Astari, land-dwelling survivors of a crashed starship, and the Maw of the Abyss, a sapient interstellar portal that has accidentally endangered the planet while trying to repair itself. The witty tale moves briskly, as Bandicut and company solve one puzzle after another, but the multiplicity of technological marvels leaves many of them underdeveloped or implausible. Flavorless dialogue, moreover, undermines not only the wit but the characterization, particularly of the aliens. Loyal fans of the series should enjoy this competent, but by no means exceptional, work.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This hard-science adventure follows, John Bandicut, interstellar troubleshooter; his three alien partners; and two sentient robots to a world made mostly of water. A deadly turbulent force, the Maw of the Abyss, threatens a race of intelligent amphibians who live in an undersea city. Great interaction among the partners and the amphibians recommends this for sf collections, especially those collecting the series.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.