Star Light

Star Light has a lot of the same characters as Misson of Gravity, the Mesklinites still scheming and the Humans still solving problems. The setting is different - a new heavy gravity world, with the first exploration contracted out to the Mesklinites. This story suffers for lack of pre-exploration inspection. The humans have plenty of satellites but have made no maps. They've been studying the world for three years but have no idea about temperature or "seasons", and this causes much grief for the explorers. The schemes are more transparent than the first novel also, and humans completely clueless.

Mainstream science fiction doesn't often have this tech focus anymore, but it is not for everybody.