Children of God definitely had something of the Sheri S Teppers about it for me. The alien lifeforms and the out-of-control crusading ideologies did it. How far can you push liberation before it turns into genocide? "We don’t have lions and tigers and bears in the streets of our cities,"? No, but the lions and tigers and bears didn’t build the cities, did they? (Which unfortunately brings in "The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" and mice). 'Star Trek' is often about breaking the Prime Directive but here we have a good example of what happens if you do, and of the "What measure is a non-cute?" trope -- if the Runa (kangaroo-like cuties) were ratlike or spiderlike it's probable that nobody would care about them.

It was a relief though to have characters who aren’t all highly intelligent and superbly well-read, even if the hijack crew that whisk Sandoz off to Rakhat again are more Larry, Curly and Moe than the Corleone Brothers -- and how can you really disagree with one of them who describes a Runa as 'a cow with an opinion'? Never mind that the author wants you to, Strawman Has a Point. However CoG did feel like a proper ending to the story begun in The Sparrow.