I'd like to nominate the first book in one of the all time great SF series, C. J. Cherryh's
Foreigner. This book and series examines how two biologically different species co-exist on the same planet. And how, after a devastating war caused by the difference in how their brains work, they learn to avoid war by interacting only through a single human "translator", the
Padhi, who lives with the
Atevi (the native bipedal species) while the entire rest of the human species on the planet lives on Mospheira, a large island off the coast of the mainland. (Think Australia off of Asia, or possibly Greenland off of North America.)
This is both classic "First Contact" SF, and an examination of how technology interacts with the world and the species on it.
430 pages
From Goodreads:
Quote:
The first book in C.J. Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race.
From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.
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From Amazon:
Quote:
The groundbreaking novel that launched Cherryh's eponymous space opera series of first contact and its consequences...
It had been nearly five centuries since the starship Phoenix, lost in space and desperately searching for the nearest G5 star, had encountered the planet of the atevi. On this alien world, law was kept by the use of registered assassination, alliances were defined by individual loyalties not geographical borders, and war became inevitable once humans and one faction of atevi established a working relationship. It was a war that humans had no chance of winning on this planet so many light-years from home.
Now, nearly two hundred years after that conflict, humanity has traded its advanced technology for peace and an island refuge that no atevi will ever visit. Then the sole human the treaty allows into atevi society is marked for an assassin's bullet. THe work of an isolated lunatic? The interests of a particular faction? Or the consequence of one human's fondness for a species which has fourteen words for betrayal and not a single word for love?
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Amazon -- $2.99
Amazon(CA) -- $9.99 CAD
Audible -- WhisperSync $7.49
AudibleUK