The Chronicler's Arrival

The Alnos Chronicles recount the struggles faced by the Alnese when their frozen home world warms to a more pleasant climate and quadruples their land holdings. A human Chronicler and a visiting scientist detail a conflict brought about by newcomers attracted to Alnos' new wealth. With Alnese family ties and Alnese children, they have more riding on the outcome of the conflict than professional success.

Convinced his infant daughter has died, Raymond kills himself on Earth only to be brought back to life on Alnos by his child's Alnese mother. During his recovery, Raymond's preternatural visions about Alnos' frozen past bring him to the attention of the planet's ruler, Lady Ciani. She asks him to become her "Chronicler" and bear witness to her struggle to guide her people through Alnos' emergence from a deep ice age. With the help of his guide Dragon Ashewe, Raymond learns to live again as he chronicles the fallout from Alnos' climate change. Though much of Alnos remains a forbidding arctic expanse, a growing tropical region is attracting immigrants with the promise of new lands and new wealth, and setting the stage for conflict between natives and newcomers.