Book Review: A Thousand Words For Stranger

Reviewed By: David Ball

A Thousand Words For Stranger     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Julie E. Czerneda
Class/Genre:   SF AND Fantasy   Mystery
Series: Trade Pact Universe # 1
Daw paperback, 1997, 366 pgs.

An excellent first novel by Julie E. Czerneda. It's SF, mystery, a bit of romance, and reminds me of a first contact novel. The contact is an old one. The "clan" are wandering around, and living on, the trade pact worlds. Very humanlike with telepathy, telekinesis, etc. Also very mysterious. Population, maybe a thousand, spread across trade pact worlds and no homeworld. People who find out anything about them tend to have partial amnesia.

A young woman of the clan is being escorted on the planet Auord. Soon, she is ambushed, loses her escort in the fight and wanders around with amnesia. The amnesia preceeded the ambush. Before long, she's being chased by slavers, and joins up with a mysterious human captain that she feels a compulsion to go with.

The book is a wild ride as she tries to recover her memory, understand her talent, stay alive, avoid being taken as a slave, rescue friends, be rescued, and decide if she likes the new person she's become and really doesn't want to get her memory back. And, that's just the basic setup for the book. It gets even more complicated.

Don't expect a transparent plot. You're never sure whether many of the characters are friends or enemies. In many cases, the answer to that question depends on how much they know about the situation, and might change several times during the book.

It's wonderful reading. I look forward to the next book by the author

David Ball

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, David Ball