A Thousand Words for Stranger by Julie E. Czerneda

And for a debut writer she already shows great confidence and skill in realizing her future, employing plenty of familiar space opera tropes but owning them in such a way that they avoid cliché. Only by tracing her origins, finding out who blocked her memory and why, will the mystery be solved.Īt heart a good old fashioned space opera in the Cherryh vein, Czerneda's story succeeds because, though it seems awfully dense at times, her plot is fundamentally quite simple.

Could they share some sort of telepathic link.and could there be more to it than that, even? As bits of her memory return to her, Sira comes to realize she is part of a much larger drama between the Clan, the Pact, and, well, practically everybody. Escaping from a vicious pirate and slaver, she finds herself in the sympathetic care of a space merchant named Morgan, to whom she feels inexplicably drawn. Suffering from a deliberate blocking of her memory, she is unsure of her own origins, and knows only that she is on the run, pursued by both members of her own kind and a ruthless Trade Pact Enforcer for reasons she cannot begin to fathom. Sira is a young woman who belongs to the Clan, a telepathic race who are not formally part of the Trade Pact but who do operate freely within Trade Pact space. Tweets by Julie Czerneda's debut is a most promising piece of work, a richly detailed and textured novel set against a gritty and unromantic interstellar backdrop governed by the Trade Pact, a union of worlds that are home to the usual menagerie of humans and exotic aliens. Book cover artwork is copyrighted by its respective artist and/or publisher. All reviews and site design © by Thomas M.

A Thousand Words for Stranger by Julie E. Czerneda