Dirge
Book Two of The Founding of the Commonwealth
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Bestselling author Alan Dean Foster has written an exciting Humanx Commonwealth adventure that delves deeper into the fragile early years when humans made first contact in this unforgettable world . . .
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE
In the second half of the twenty-fourth century, diplomatic relations proceed cautiously between thranx and humans. But the insectlike beings are nearly forgotten with the sudden discovery of an ideal planet to colonize—Argus V—and the startling appearance of a new race of space-faring aliens. People are dazzled by the beautiful, glamorous pitar. Then tragedy strikes.
The entire human population on Argus V is brutally slaughtered. Not a single clue remains to identify the unseen executioners. But from a tiny inner moon of Argus V comes a faint signal. On that insignificant chunk of rubble lies the key to the crime—setting in motion a cataclysmic chain of events with deadly consequences for thranx, pitar, and human alike. For their worlds will be changed forever by a colossal battle that is their future and their destiny . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Derivative and predictable, this second novel in Foster's Founding of the Commonwealth series reinforces the lesson that looks can be deceiving. When Alwyn Mallory explores the new world of Argus V, he inadvertently becomes part of the first contact team to meet the alien Pitar. Unlike the unpleasantly buglike alien thranx, the Pitar are "drop-dead, overpoweringly, stunningly, gorgeous." Relations with the friendly but disliked thranx slow to a crawl as humanity overwhelmingly embraces the Pitar. Their telegenic appearances are so compelling that the media scarcely notices when the thranx are attacked by terrorists in a protected diplomatic enclave on Earth. Possibly the only good thing to come out of the slaughter is the founding of a joint religion by two clerics, one human and one thranx. As years pass, and the Pitar continue to refuse access to their homeworld, the media spin explains that they are "shy" and refuses to believe they could have anything to hide. Meanwhile, humanity is happily expanding through the galaxy and colonizing Argus V--until disaster strikes and all 600,000 colonists are hideously slaughtered by an unknown force. When Mallory is discovered, crazed and near death, hiding on one of the Argus's moons, he is the only hope humankind has for ascertaining just who the villainous, slaughtering aliens really are. Although Foster implies that interesting things are going to happen with human-thranx religious philosophies, that doesn't happen in this novel. Instead we get a vision of humanity as a race unable to see beyond the reflection of surface beauty and incapable of restraining itself from its basest instincts when that enhanced mirror is shattered.
