One of science fiction's most highly respected writers, C.J. Cherryh impressed critics and fans alike with the Foreigner trilogy--the epic story of a lost human colony struggling to survive on the world of the alien atevi. Now, in Precursor, both human and atevi return to space to rebuild and rearm the ancient human space station and starship, and make a dsperate bid to defend their planet against alien attack.
Six months have passed since the reappearance of the starship Phoenix - the same ship which brought humans to the world of alien atevi nearly two hundred years ago, leaving a small and vulnerable colony to struggle for survival in a hostile environment.
In this sequel to "Foreigner", Bren Cameron once again falls foul of the cultural differences between humanity and the Atevi, but this time he seems to have no backing from his own people. Then the spaceship which marooned the human colony 200 years previously returns.
It had been nearly five centuries since the starship Phoenix had become lost in space and had encountered the world of the atevi. On this world where law was kept by registered assassination, war between the humans and atevi was inevitable. Now, 200 years after that conflict, the sole human allowed into atevi society is marked for an assassin's bullet. . . .
Genetic manipulation, murder, intrigue and politics are just part of the story of a young scientist in this substantial book. C. J. Cherryh, who won the 1989 Hugo Award for this novel, following on her Hugo Award-winning Downbelow Station, offers another ambitious work. A geneticist is murdered by an adviser, but the scientist is replicated in the lab, leaving a prodigy who attempts to chart a different fate. The book is intense and complex yet always presented with the flow of true storytelling.
