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Book Details

Explorer

71.4% complete
2003
Unknown
Never (or unknown...)
Science fiction
Science fiction, American
Space colonies - Fiction
21 chapters
Book Cover
Has a genre In my library In a series 
3130
Copyright © 2003 by C J Cherryh
For my father
Steam went up as the shower needled Bren's back - a moment of blissful content in a voyage neither that blissful nor content.
May contain spoilers
They were going home.
No comments on file
Synopsis not on file
Extract not on file

 

Added: 10-Jun-2022
Last Updated: 19-Dec-2023

Publications

 01-Nov-2003
DAW Books
Mass Market Paperback
In my libraryOrder from amazon.comHas a cover imageBook Edition Cover
Date Issued:
Cir 01-Nov-2003
Format:
Mass Market Paperback
Cover Price:
$6.99
Pages*:
523
Internal ID:
33409
Publisher:
ISBN:
0-756-40131-3
ISBN-13:
978-0-756-40131-3
Printing:
1
Country:
United States
Language:
English
Credits:
Michael Whelan  - Cover Artist
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS


It has been nearly ten years since the starship Phoenix returned to the abandoned station orbiting the world of the alien atevi.  This station, called Alpha, had been deserted for centuries following a rift between a faction of the station's inhabitants and the spacers' autocratic Pilot's Guild.  For two hundred years this splinter faction had shared a fragile coexistence with the atevi, living, in isolation on the island of Mosphiera, communicating with the brilliant but volatile atevi by the use of a single highly trained diplomat, the paidhi, and trading technological information for continued peace and safety.

The unexpected return of the Phoenix has forever changed the lives of both atevi and Mosphierans, for over the ensuing decade, the captains of the Phoenix have brought both the atevi and their human counterparts into space.  Their motivation seemed simple: Reunion Station, a human station in another sector of space, had been destroyed by aliens.

But on his deathbed, the senior captain of the Phoenix admits that he lied to the crew - that Reunion was merely damaged, not destroyed, and many people, including family and friends of the Phoenix crew may have survived.  At this disclosure, the crew rebels and forces the Phoenix to undertake a rescue mission to Reunion.

But the crew and captains do not go alone, for on board are Bren Cameron, brilliant human paidhi, now representing Tabini-aiji, the atevi ruler, and Tabini's grandmother llisidi, the aiji-dowager, a fearsome, wily, and ambitious atevi leader with an agenda of her own.

Trapped in a distant star system with very little fuel left, facing a potentially bellicose alien ship, how can Bren help to avoid inter-species war when the notoriously secretive Pilot's Guild aboard Reunion Station won't even cooperate with their own ship, and may have kept the inhabitants of their own station ignorant of their true situation?
Cover:
Book CoverBook Back CoverBook Spine
Notes and Comments:
First Paperback Printing, November 2003
First printing based on the number line
Canada: $9.99

Related

Author(s)

C J Cherryh  
Birth: 01 Sep 1942 St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Awards

No awards found
*
  • I try to maintain page numbers for audiobooks even though obviously there aren't any. I do this to keep track of pages read and I try to use the Kindle version page numbers for this.
  • Synopses marked with an asterisk (*) were generated by an AI. There aren't a lot since this is an iffy way to do it - AI seems to make stuff up.
  • When specific publication dates are unknown (ie prefixed with a "Cir"), I try to get the publication date that is closest to the specific printing that I can.
  • When listing chapters, I only list chapters relevant to the story. I will usually leave off Author Notes, Indices, Acknowledgements, etc unless they are relevant to the story or the book is non-fiction.
  • Page numbers on this site are for the end of the main story. I normally do not include appendices, extra material, and other miscellaneous stuff at the end of the book in the page count.






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Presented: 28-Mar-2024 10:41:36

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