While I'm here,

I may have enthused about _Dark Eden_ a year or three back here on TML.

Well, if you like that, you might well like _Semiosis_ by Sue Burke which I've just finished reading and rather enjoyed.  It's another new colony type venture on a 'difficult' planet.

Also, if you've always wanted (believable) intelligent plants, this is a must read.  I'm really just not thinking alien enough for my Traveller critters.

It's perhaps not *quite* as perfect as Dark Eden because I think it's, technically, a fix-up.  Although the linked stories are more closely connected than, say, Asimov's Foundation trilogy which is where I think I first heard the term.  Indeed, the last three or four feel like you are just reading a novel.

But I'm very glad I picked it up and would warmly recommend it.

tc