378 pages
English language
Published Nov. 8, 1994 by DAW Books, Distributed by Penguin U.S.A..
Humans stranded on an alien world. Accepted by the aliens, until suddenly it was war. Because when the aliens are hard-wired in their brains to not even be able to understand the concept of friend; and loyalty to your boss is unbending and forever, until you realize a higher boss has pulled you away -- and that's not betrayal just natural, well, then, how can humans possibly interact? So, now, one man, Bren, is the sole interpretor for all human-alien interactions... and then the whole dynamic changes. A fascinating insight into what it really means to discover an "alien" culture. Gripping story that sets off a series now more than 13 titles strong.
Usually, I'm a big fan of the author. However, this one just never really grabbed me (not even sure why myself).
Pretty amazing world building but... Yes there is always a gotcha... The author says she writes in "extreme 3rd person". What this means is it is one continuous stream of the main character's inner thoughts. No real break. It is different. Stream of conciousness at it's worst/finest. Yes there is dialog. Yes there is strong world building. Can it get repetative? Well do YOU ever go over stuff in YOUR brain? At any rate a good book and a better series (22 books to date I believe).
