Summertide - Charles Sheffield

Summertide is the first in a sequence of books called the Heritage Universe Series. Summertide is a hard science fiction novel. It takes place over 4,000 years in the future in the Dobelle system. The Dobelle is unique in the known universe. Every year there's a convergence of planets and suns called Summertide that unleashes some tremendous forces on all the planetary bodies in the system. Once every 350,000 years all the plants and suns in the system linup just right to create phenomenal tides that will be devastating to the only life bearing planets in the Dobelle system, Quake and Opal. In this story surviving Summertide is the challenge. Finding out why the mysterious Builders seem to be so focused on the convergence appears to have engaged all the known intelligent races, making that survival even more difficult. Highly recommended.