Playing God

As Lynn Nussbaumer and her company, Bioverse, Inc., try to expunge a biological weapon from the fractious future world of the Dedelphi, a malevolent alliance arises intent on using the poison to their own ends

In the future, the Dedelphi, a race ravaged by eons of warfare, contracts with Earth's Bioverse Corporation to save their planet from ecological disaster. Dr. Lynn Nussbaumer spearheads the massive effort, which involves relocating the planet's entire population to orbiting space cities while Bioverse cleanses the ecosphere with its custom nanotechnology, simultaneously reaping whatever rare organisms and bacteria its workers discover. Meanwhile, Praeis Shin t'Theria, a member of the Dedelphia and a fascinating, credible and humane alien character, has returned with her family from exile to her home planet at the request of the ruling Queens-of-All. The matriarchy suspects that the Bioverse effort may be a trick of their enemy clan, the Getesaph, to kill all t'Theria, and so they command Praeis Shin to shore up whatever support she can for the planet's shaky truce. But despite Nussbaumer's and Praeis Shin's efforts, open fighting erupts, with the Getesaph commandeering one of the space cities. Abduction, corporate betrayal and murder ensue, forcing Nussbaumer to choose between abandoning the Dedelphi to a suicidal fate, enforcing a kind of corporate martial law or opening a dialogue to a truly cooperative effort that would help the Dedelphi save their planet and establish a lasting peace. Readers will embrace this complex, multidimensional saga (Zettel's hardcover debut, and the best of her three novels) not only for its depiction of exotic alien civilization and its action-packed plot but also for its pertinent themes of tribalism, intolerance and ecological disaster. (Nov.) FYI: Zettel's first novel, Reclamation, won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hardcover debut for the author of a couple of well-received science fiction paperbacks (Fool's War, etc.). On planet All-Cradle live the Dedelphi, homicidal humanoid aliens whose numerous clans have been warring for millennia. Humans, however, are toxic to Dedelphi and must wear environmental suits. All active Dedelphi are female, powerfully bonded mother to daughter, sister to sisterexcept that when they grow old, they turn male. Now their technology has reached the nuclear and biological danger level: half the population has died from a mutated plague, and the desperate clans have ceased hostilities so that Dr. Lynn Nussbaumer of Earth's Bioverse corporation can help. In return, Bioverse will be permitted exclusive access to the planet's unexploited biological resources. The natives will be evacuated to huge orbiting city-ships while Bioverse deals with the plague. But Lynn finds that only wise Praeis Shin of the t'Theria clan is willing to negotiate a genuine end to the violence. Lynn, meanwhile, has a personal problem: old college flame Arron Hagopian has been working closely with the Getesaph clan and publishes some inflammatory material about Bioverse's true intentions, claiming that it will sooner destroy the planet than let the clans fight it out. Then Arron discovers the Getesaph are planning a surprise attack on the first city-ship. He tries to warn Lynn but the Getesaph grab them both, along with Praeis's daughter Resaime, who, having been deliberately confined with Lynn and Arron, quickly dies. The Getesaph capture the ship, the t'Theria retaliate, and war explodes across the planet. Even if Lynn can escape, how can she stop the carnage? A taut, thoroughly captivating yarn, with splendid characters, a gratifyingly substantial sociobiological base, and one intractable problem: Armed with nukes and missiles, how did the Dedelphi avoid exterminating themselves long before humans showed up? -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A handful of the all-female Dedelphi, representative of all the Dedelphi families, flees the internecine warfare that plagues their world--and flees an artificial plague, the mutation of the latest nasty weapon, too--to form a peaceful colony among the humans on Mars. Their leader, Praeis Shin of the t'Theria family, hopes to forge an alliance with humans for an enormous project: relocating all Dedelphi to orbiting city ships while humans eradicate the plague and clean up the Dedelphi home planet. Under Praeis and engineer and urban planner Lynn Nussbaumer, it is a hopeful collaboration, especially considering that Dedelphi are so violently allergic to humans that a mere handshake can raise poisonous welts. But Praeis and Lynn are unaware of the seething, vengeful, rebellious factions back in the Dedelphi home world who will stop at nothing to make sure that their respective families not only survive but emerge as rulers. Zettel captures both loving, emotional relationships and the feverish thrill of battle in a fast-paced novel that will satisfy the most demanding sf reader. Roberta Johns