Summertide is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel by Charles Sheffield

Charles Sheffield

Charles Sheffield , was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society....

 written within the Heritage Universe

Heritage Universe

The Heritage Universe is a fictional setting created by Charles Sheffield for a series of science fiction novels. The date of the setting is several thousand years into the future, during a time when human space colonization has filled much of the local spiral arm of the galaxy...

. The story takes place millennia in the future, with humans having extensively colonized our spiral arm of the Milky Way

Milky Way

The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...

 and having encountered a number of intelligent alien races. Littered throughout the galaxy

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

 are hundreds of massive abandoned engineering projects built by a mysterious race, referred to as The Builders, extinct for 3 million years. An eclectic group of scientists and opportunists are descending upon one such artifact at a time when its surrounding environment is extremely dangerous to study an unusual phenomenon.

Summertide has a sequel, Divergence

Divergence (novel)

Divergence is a science fiction novel by Charles Sheffield written in the Heritage Universe series. This book is the sequel to Summertide. The book takes place millennia in the future when most of the Orion arm of the galaxy has been colonized by humans and other races...

.

Translations

• Russian
  Russian language
  Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
  
  : "" ("Summer Tide"), 1995, 2003, 2004