Phylogenesis

The Humanx Commonwealth is Alan Dean Foster's signature fictional universe, the setting of, among others, his Adventures of Flinx series (which begins with __) and the Icerigger trilogy. But how did the Commonwealth come to be? How did two seemingly dissimilar races--the gregarious, warm-blooded humans and the reserved, insectile thranx--form a union that would become so strong and prosperous as to eventually dominate our part of the galaxy?

The actual first contact between the humans and the thranx takes place in the quite exciting __, but you don't have to have read that novel to follow what happens in Phylogenesis. In this book, which takes place soon after the first contact, the races have embarked on a program of slow, careful cultural exchange. If all goes well, the planners feel, in some decades a few tentative agreements might be reached. But they never planned on the chance meeting of a rogue thranx poet and a human thief who's hiding in the Amazon jungle. The events that surround the friendship of these two, each an outcast from his own society, will force scientists and politicians of both races to alter not only their plans but also their beliefs about human/thranx compatibility.

Foster makes excellent use of his knowledge of Latin American culture to paint a picture of a vibrant yet realistic future South America. The Amazon jungle is presented in such vivid detail it seems almost an alien world itself. Fans of the Commonwealth novels won't want to miss this crucial chapter in its history. --Brooks Peck

Some centuries in the future come the earliest days of contact between humans and the insect-like thranx. Both species carefully try to keep contact in the hands of approved experts, but the thranx have slipped a covert base into the Amazon rain forest. Desvendapur, a thranx poet obsessed with finding new sources of inspiration through contact with humans, escapes from this base into the jungle. There he encounters Cheelo Montoya, a small-time gangster fleeing a mugging that turned into a murder, a man with no poetry in his soul but abundant street smarts. Their initial misunderstandings and suspicion give way to cooperation, and then to friendship after the two survive an encounter with deadly poachers. The author of more than 40 novels, Foster does a fine job with his misfit heroes and even with his minor characters (such as the reptilian AAnn). He shows his usual mastery of narrative pacing and slips in a great deal of wry wit (the sexiness of a female thranx depends on the slenderness of her ovipositors). The novel will be a treat for those who have followed Foster's tales of the Humanx Commonwealth, to which this is a kind of prelude and which began way back in 1972 with The Tar-Aiym Krang, and can also serve as a splendid introduction to both the Commonwealth and its creator.
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